Apprion's IONizer Connect Links Critical Data Points for Industrial Applications

Feb. 20, 2012
Open-Protocol Device Offers Affordable, Rugged, Easy-to-Install Wireless Connection

Apprion announced IONizer Connect, a unique, innovative device that quickly connects critical industrial network data points for data acquisition and transmission at a breakthrough price point. IONizer Connect provides easy, open-protocol installation and integration with both wireless and wired data networks.

The IONizer Connect is the latest addition to Apprion's fast-growing family of industrial devices, which facilitate data acquisition, input and transmission within industrial sites. IONizer Connect provides real-time communication between critical data points in the network, and has functions for interfacing and backhauling data from legacy sensors. It provides a wireless connection to Apprion's information management platform, IONosphere, giving seamless network integration for all data and applications in the network. IONizer Connect is a Class I Div 2 industrial rated device with various radio options such as 802.11, WiMAX, and 900MHz for backhaul and can connect to 4-20mA, Modbus, Foundation Fieldbus and other wired sensor connections. As a streamlined device for connecting stranded data points, its unique price point is significantly lower than less suitable industrial gateways and access points.

According to Harry Forbes of Boston-based ARC Advisory Group, the "low cost and rapidly deployable extensions like IONizer Connect enable manufacturers to rapidly expand their wireless applications and leverage their existing wireless infrastructure."

Deploying the IONizer Connect allows users to safely, securely and efficiently manage any industrial facility, and quickly respond to changing conditions in today's challenging and complicated processing environment.

Apprion's IONizer family provides an expandable software and hardware platform that goes beyond the standard functionality of network access points and routers. Apprion's ION System streams real-time intelligence from multiple applications and devices into a common dashboard view for plant operators in industrial process manufacturing industries. The System allows centralized management of multi-vendor wireless devices to ensure that wireless applications throughout a process manufacturing plant perform reliably and cost-effectively.

Apprion's engineers have architected the ION System so that wireless network devices relay data around obstacles, creating a network with no single point of failure. This self-healing network ensures uninterrupted data communication even in environments with large obstacles such as storage tanks.