Urban Water and Wastewater SCADA: Continuity and Compliance via SG100

A fast-growing smart city confronted rising non-revenue water and stricter discharge regulations. Pump stations, lift stations, and district metering areas required pervasive telemetry and secure control. The Mofiu SG100 delivered a unified communications backbone spanning chlorination skids, variable frequency drives, legacy PLCs, and level sensors—without overhauling installed assets.

At each site, the SG100’s Ethernet ports connected PLCs and local HMIs, while RS485 captured multi-drop instrument buses—flow transmitters, ultrasonic level probes, and energy meters. RS232 integrated serial PLCs still common in remote lift stations. The digital input monitored sump high-level alarms; the digital output triggered sirens or escalated callouts during overflow risk, coordinated from the central control room via securely authenticated commands.

Cellular continuity was engineered in. Dual SIMs offered carrier diversity across flood-prone districts. Intelligent link management prioritized SCADA polling and alarm classes over historian backfills, preventing command latency spikes. When heavy rain overwhelmed backhaul, the SG100’s prioritization kept pump start/stop cycles responsive, and field crews retained stable remote access sessions for diagnostics.

Security was a first-class concern given critical infrastructure status. Hardware secure boot guaranteed trusted firmware, and IPSec tunnels enforced cryptographic integrity and confidentiality toward the control center. OpenVPN facilitated temporary, auditable access for contractors during commissioning windows. VLAN hygiene and access lists pinned down cross-talk, isolating camera feeds from control networks.

The SG100’s protocol conversion presented a graceful upgrade path. Serial-only RTUs communicated IEC101 or DNP3 over RS485, translated upstream to IEC104/DNP3 TCP for the SCADA master and analytics stack. This enabled enterprise reporting on pump efficiency and infiltration/inflow trends, while maintaining deterministic behavior at the edge. Alarm rationalization flowed more easily with normalized point lists, enhancing compliance reporting for EPA-equivalent authorities.

Results were concrete. Overflow events declined as pumps responded in real time to storm surges, substantiated by audit trails. Non-revenue water dropped after pressure zones were better balanced using high-frequency flow data. Maintenance teams used the digital input-triggered alerts to schedule predictive interventions—bearing replacements and seal checks—reducing catastrophic failures. Even during a carrier outage affecting several districts, failover SIMs kept telemetry continuous; not a single critical alarm was lost.

The SG100 set the stage for next-level capabilities: ML-driven leak detection, autonomous pump curves tuned by live energy prices, and remote firmware strategies anchored by verified boot. By elegantly straddling the old and the new—serial and IP, discrete I/O and encrypted tunnels—the SG100 made the water network both compliant and continuously available, underpinning public health and urban resilience.

About Mofiu

Mofiu is a premier innovator in industrial wireless communications, dedicated to delivering mission-critical connectivity solutions that power the world’s most demanding environments. With a steadfast commitment to safety, reliability, and engineering excellence, Mofiu designs and manufactures robust wireless devices that enable seamless data exchange across electricity, utilities, energy infrastructure, transportation networks, and smart industrial systems etc.

Mofiu - Secure connectivity, uncompromised performance.