Until now, we have been used to the acquisition of data from "simple" sensors, devices capable of carrying out data collections according to specific application areas (equipment dedicated to detecting data related to room temperature, vehicles movement, quality of the air, noise levels of certain environments or the presence of certain substances). These are devices which, in different forms and modes, are somehow interrogated "manually" without relying on a network. Through the IoT (Internet of things) and more particularly the IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things), on the other hand, it is possible to connect to the Internet any type of equipment or machinery by monitoring, controlling and transferring information that has to do, for example , with the maintenance or maintenance services. The purpose of the IIoT is to optimize the production process by connecting the machines together and then processing the data acquired. These analyzes make it possible to establish and optimize predictive maintenance processes with significant savings in terms of extraordinary maintenance costs.

TAM SOFTWARE supported by companies in the IoT sector and by maintenance services companies, has implemented an innovation package in the field of integrated maintenance in this direction.

The solutions created are developed accordingly to the LoRa IoTstandard, a particular development method that allows the connection of nodes (for the control of physical systems) at distances up to 15 km from the collection and aggregation gateway. Here are the main strengths of this choice:

• Coverage: A LoRa network includes gateways for connection to the central network server. Endpoints communicate with a star network topology via a single-hop wireless connection to gateways with the ability to connect to multiple gateways, to ensure redundancy. Per coprire una grande area è sufficiente un’infrastruttura leggera.
• Autonomy: Thanks to the contained energy demand, the end-point of a battery-powered LoRa network can work for many years, a sufficient duration in many applications, which has a significant effect on the operating costs of a network with numerous end-points.
• Modularity/Flexibility: In this way a complete remote management of processes and products is obtained based on an innovative and efficient wireless architecture. At the same time, this approach is useful as a tool for new applications and the implementation of intelligent automations to make a process / product more efficient and effective.