LevelCon uses Acconeer radar sensors in their remote tank monitoring solutions
With 40 years in the business, the company LevelCon specializes in remote tank and bin level monitoring solutions. Located with their headquarter in Houston and branch office in India, LevelCon services the international tank business segment with customer solutions for fuels, oils, lubricants, water/wastewater, fertilizers and animal feeds. Their customers expect accurate readings of tank level data to be delivered in real time.
Extremely easy to mount a tank level sensor and get connected
LevelCon has taken a holistic approach to providing their customers with a complete and cost efficient end-to-end tank level monitoring solution. In order to provide a cost-efficient product, not only did the hardware sensor need to be efficiently designed, but also the surrounding costs in terms of installing, operating and maintaining the system had to be taken into account as well. Many customers have 100s or 1000s of data points to be measured in an accurate and stable fashion over the course of many years of varying environment conditions.
Using the Acconeer radar module in their Bluetooth Low Energy based model R3 tank level sensor, LevelCon allows customers to monitor tanks with a depth of up to 10 meters. Multiple tank sensors communicate through the LevelCon gateway and provide real-time readings for all monitored properties. The backbone communication is based on LTE Cat M1, NB-IoT or even satellite if required. The customer can either use the LevelCon app or integrate with the LevelCon API to read the data and get notifications and alarms.
“Acconeer’s radar solutions provided us with a platform to realize the holy grail of tank gauging: a high accuracy, low cost, highly reliable non-contact sensor that works on the vast majority of tanks.”
Patrick Patel, Director LevelCon
The Acconeer radar module provides high accuracy at low cost
The tube shaped LevelCon R3 tank level sensor features the Acconeer radar module and fits conveniently in the 1.5″ NPT process connection of the tank. The contactless ABS based sensor casing is completely sealed and can even provide readings for aggressive chemicals and acids. The sensor is battery powered with an expected operating time of up to 5 years thanks to the power efficiency of Acconeer’s pulsed coherent radar technology. LevelCon provides their solutions across the world to many different countries with various climate conditions, hence the unit is rated to operate in temperatures ranging from -40°C to +85°C.
Over the years, LevelCon has used nearly every type of sensor technology including submersibles, ultrasonic, continuous level float as well as other radar sensors to address different customer needs. Non-contact sensors are always preferred due to their precision and ease of installation, but most ultrasonic and radar solutions are costly and the few low-cost sensors out there are ripe with problems. After having evaluated the Acconeer radar sensor, the LevelCon team concluded that it met all their requirements in terms of low cost and high reliability and it works in the majority of all tanks.
About LevelCon
Micro-Design/LevelCon is a family owned technology company founded in 1983. Birthed in natural gas telemetry systems in the early 80s, they have a deep passion for meaningful monitoring solutions that provide value over long periods of time. LevelCon caters to both Fortune 500 companies as well as hundreds of small businesses and utilities all over the world to deliver accurate high value data. Starting in 2018, LevelCon began focusing on more generalized industrial IoT specifically on emerging markets enabled by new technologies in connectivity, sensing, and edge computing.