FAQs

• Frequently Asked Questions 8

Frequently Asked Questions

• What environments can I use Smart Tower in?

  Smart Tower has been rigorously tested to operate in challenging environments, such as lightning prone sites, high RF zones, RF sensitive areas and corrosive environments to name a few.

• What maintenance does Smart Tower require?

  There is no long-term maintenance required of the system, with the exception of occasional replacement of backup batteries in the Ground Control Unit using inexpensive gel-cell batteries. Smart Tower is made with high-grade components to provide superior reliability and extended service life.

• Do I need to be on-site to upgrade Smart Tower?

  All feature sets and operating software are upgraded remotely. No site visit is required.

• Is Smart Tower power conscious?

  Smart Tower was designed to keep the cost of 24/7 operating power as low as possible. This includes power-efficient designs throughout. Systems could be powered from one photo-voltaic panel and a battery in remote locations.

• How does Smart Tower capture forensic data?

  The Smart Tower system utilizes black box technology. In doing so, dedicated “forensic” non-volatile memory is recoverable after a failure event, and the recovered data is available for failure analysis.

• How does Smart Tower collect and aggregate the sensor data?

  Individual sensor data is collected by a high-performance on-board microcontroller, packetized and sent to the Ground Control Unit (GCU).  Sensor data is collected by GCU computers and stored on solid state drives (SSD) and then transmitted to the Cloud for further processing.

• How does Smart Tower prevent data loss?

  The Smart Tower GCU (Ground Control Unit) is designed with redundant components including computers, solid state disk drives and power supplies with battery backup. In addition the GCU and sensor modules are built with high-grade components, and the components are selected for extreme-temperature applications. The sensor unit is designed and tested for lightning survival.

• Does Smart Tower interfere with RF equipment?

  Smart Tower sensors and its data cables release no detectable RF emission. They are designed to operate in both high RF environments and sensitive communications environments.