Magnus Monitors uses radar in their tank level monitor with a completely non-intrusive design
Magnus Monitors founded in 2017, is an IoT enabled cloud based smart telemetry solutions company based in Galway, Ireland, that has developed a connected tank level monitor that features the Acconeer radar sensor. In 2020 when the development team evaluated a number of different technologies for their new line of products, radar was traditionally considered complicated, expensive and in need of mains power. That’s when they tried the new Acconeer radar sensor and it ticked all the boxes for their upcoming tank level monitor in terms of cost, accuracy, and power consumption. Thanks to the monitor’s battery powered design, the installation process is a minute’s work and just a matter of gluing it onto the tank. The product is unaffected by environmental factors and is designed to operate 24/7/365 for a wide range of industries.
Non-invasive installation allows monitoring of corrosive liquids
On plastic tanks, the radar level monitor is simply mounted by applying sealant at the bottom and placing it in the correct position. You don’t have to compromise the structure of the tank or drill any holes. Thanks to the characteristics of the radar waves from the Acconeer sensor, the fluid level is detected through the container material.
The monitor unit reads tank levels up to a height of 4 meters with an accuracy of ±5mm. It’s able to detect the surface of many different content types, even the ones that are chemically challenging for other technologies, such as:
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Diesel/HVO/AdBlue
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Gas Oil/Kerosene
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Lubricants
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Waste management recycling (waste oil and glass recycling)
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Water
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Chemicals/Detergents
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Liquid Fertilisers
“Our radar level monitoring solution has allowed customers to enhance their service levels and customer retention, while achieving up to 30% increase in operational efficiency and a quicker ROI”
Shankar Ganesh Jayagopi, Founder & CEO Magnus Monitors
High accuracy with low power consumption
Battery lifetime depends on a range of factors both related to the internal settings of the monitor and external parameters such as temperature. However, with the outlined settings for message frequency, the monitor has a service life range from 5 to 10 years depending on measurement frequency and IoT connectivity signal coverage.
With the lowest power consumption in the industry, the Acconeer radar sensor employed in the monitor is very suitable to run on batteries. The pulsed coherent radar technology combines the best of two worlds when it comes to accuracy and power efficiency.
All containers are monitored remotely
Magnus Monitors provides a connected platform that aggregates data from all container monitor units and presents status and analytics. The supervising team sees the dashboard on a PC, a tablet or a smartphone and can then plan and act upon this data based on levels in each tank. Stock is more easily managed, and the service team can avoid unnecessary trips to check up container levels. The customer also has the option to access the data through the available API.
Each tank monitor device is connected to the web platform through a combination of Sigfox, NB-IoT and 2G, either by establishing the connection via NB-IoT or LTE-Cat-M in the first instance or using 2G access where the LPWAN (NB-IoT or LTE-Cat-M) options are not available or through a Sigfox based model.
About Magnus Monitors
Magnus Monitors consists of an experienced team with technical expertise in both advanced hardware and enterprise software that develops highly accurate end-to-end monitoring solutions. In 2020, the company partnered with Acconeer and pioneered the introduction of the world’s first truly wireless (battery powered) radar-based tank level monitoring solution. Since then, the radar-based level monitoring solution has been adopted to many different use case applications, with the primary use case applications focused on the fuel oil distribution industry in particular, diesel, kerosene, lubricants, AdBlue, fuel additives.