Introduction:
Driven by the Internet of Things (IoT) trend in recent years, many cities have actively installed the Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) system to replace the traditional mechanical meter. Because AMI uses information and communication technology to provide two-way communication, the water, electricity, natural gas and other information collected by the digitized smart meters can be directly transmitted to the control center of the management unit through the Internet. Supervisors can monitor the users' usage in real time, and no longer need to calculate their billing by regularly dispatching staff to the site for the meter reading.

The AMI system consists of three major parts, namely: the front-end smart meter, the middle-tier data concentrator and the back-end management system. Among them, the data concentrator as a relay station plays a key role. It is not only responsible for collecting the information and data of multiple smart meters and then forwarding to the management system, but also provides the necessary monitoring and troubleshooting functions for administrators to remotely manage. In addition, the functions required for automatic meter reading applications in different countries or regions are not exactly the same. Therefore, system developers must carefully choose the right embedded computer to efficiently develop the data concentrators in response to the diversified customer needs.

Artila’s Product & Advantage:
Artila’s Matrix-700 is a Linux-ready arm9 embedded industrial IoT Gateway. Equipping with the 400MHz ARM processor, 64MB SDRAM and 256MB NAND Flash allows this computer to perform multiple tasks at the same time, and to have enough performance to handle much more complicated system functions..

The Matrix-700 is quite compact (78 x 108 x 24mm), but it offers a wide range of connectivity options, including one 10/100 Mbps Ethernet port, four high-speed TTY (serial) ports, two USB 2.0 ports and a micro-SD slot. System developers can take advantage of these interfaces to design the required functions such as: using Ethernet port to build a wired network, or plugging in a USB WiFi dongle to establish an IEEE-802.11 b/g wireless connection for the system.

It is particularly worth mentioning that the Matrix-700 has UBI file system installed in on-board NAND Flash to offer better read and write performance. The computer also utilizes 2MB Data Flash (read only) to provide recovery mechanism in the presence of a fault. When the system or program can not function properly caused by the NAND Flash file system problems, the Matrix-700 will use on-board Data Flash to automatically start the system. Administrators can restore the computer without personally going to the scene.

Features: Matrix-700

	Processor: ATMEL AT91SAM9G20 400MHz CPU
	Operating System: Linux 2.6.29 compatible computing platform
	TTY (Serial) Ports: RS-232/422/485 x 1, RS-232/485 x 3
	USB Host Ports: 2-port compatible with USB 2.0
	microSD socket inside: microSD card (up to 32GB)
	UBI File System and DataFlash® for fault recovery mechanism

Description:

An Israeli company with decades of experiences in measuring, reading, collecting, transmitting and managing data is a system developer specializing in automated meter reading solutions. The company's water meter products alone have been installed millions of units around the world, not to mention other products. In response to the trend of smart meter applications, this prestigious system developer in the international market has also begun to design the remote automatic meter reading solutions.

As we all know that smart meter is a short-range communication device. Its communication range varies from tens of meters to several kilometers depending on the setting environment. As a result, the company's automated meter reading solution must be add the data concentrator between the smart meter and the monitoring center of the management unit. In order for the data concentrator to accurately and reliably collect data and achieve real-time two-way communication, the company wanted to select an embedded Linux-based computer that provides adequate computing performance and connection interfaces as a data concentrator control core.

The Matrix-700 is based on the arm9 processor and Linux kernel. The system developer of this project is familiar with such development environment, so its designers can easily and quickly complete the product development. The high-speed arm processor and large memory also provide sufficient computing performance to execute the heavy tasks of the data concentrator. Supporting multiple interface ports allows designers to develop the required functions according to the actual application needs such as: connecting a switch or router with an Ethernet port, connecting a smart meter or sensor with a high-speed serial port, using USB 2.0 port to set up the wireless network, and utilizing the micro-SD slot to insert the external memory card for storage capacity expansion.

The most satisfactory feature of the Matrix-700 is the fault recovery mechanism. The company hoped that the data concentrator developed by it will automatically reboot the system in the event of power failure or network disconnection. Therefore, automatically starting the computer via Data Flash exactly fits its system requirement.

Diagram:

Related Products:
Matrix-700 Linux-ready Cortex-A5 Industrial Box Computer