FreeWave to Automate Pumps for Brazilian Energy Company

When Petrobras, the sixth largest energy company in the world, was looking to automate over 200 oil and gas wells throughout Brazil, they turned to FreeWave Technologies.

FreeWave specializes in manufacturing reliable, high performance spread spectrum radios for data transmission. They will install their HTplus Ethernet radios in the selected sites, which will allow for pump station automation through the transmission of data regarding flow rate, pressure and temperature.

Since many of these pump stations are at risk for theft and vandalism due to protecting precious metals in the pumps,  Petrogas is also considering installing IP security cameras. Because of this need, the company sought a solution with sufficient bandwidth to help compensate for lack of security fencing and less-than-secure locations.

“Although we had used a competing vendor for other SCADA projects, we were willing to take a look at what FreeWave had to offer,” said a plenary equipment engineer at Petrobras, Celso Gomes Alves Neto, in a statement. “Between the meetings, visits and test pilot, FreeWave proved its HTplus Ethernet solution was ideal for this particular installation. We especially were interested in the HTplus' high bandwidth, which is essential in reaching our ultimate goal of enabling IP camera monitoring to further protect our assets. FreeWave also is the only company offering a free path study service, which is quite unique. Since deployment, we have been very satisfied with the results.”

Recently, TMC (News - Alert) CEO Rich Tehrani spoke with FreeWave CMO Ashish Sharma (News - Alert) about the company’s long range data communications solutions. In the discussion, Sharma highlighted the fact that FreeWave’s radios communicate in a proprietary fashion, making them more secure than most traditional communications systems. Tehrani also made note of some of the company’s radios, such as the embedded MM2, which weighs in at a tiny 14 grams.