By Martin Charlton Communications
Yes, Alexa and Siri have become common place in almost all of our lives.
The growing trend for Smart Home automation can connect video cameras, lighting, your home’s thermostat, with more and more devices being supported every day. The Internet-of-Things (IoT) trend has enabled your fridge and doorbell to talk to your smart phone.
But what about in industry? How do you create a smart building? A smart hospital? A team of Saskatchewan engineers has cornered the market on this emerging trend.
IPFusion unifies systems and devices so cameras, door locks, alarms, nurse calls, communications, lighting so everything can communicate with one another.
IPFusion is an enterprise Internet-of-Things software suite created by a division of Delco Automation. Drawing from Delco’s previous experience and knowledge, development of IPFusion was started in 2012 and has matured into the commercial off-the-shelf software it is today.
Over the past number of years, it has been installed in many facilities across Canada, including correctional institutions, hospitals, commercial high-rise, energy facilities, stadiums, court houses and academic institutions.
“Enterprise automation is really shifting into a digital age. We are seeing a trend for large scale, software-driven automation with very complex systems that were never really meant to talk to each other,” explained Edward Reed, P.Eng., director of software with IPFusion.
“In the Home Automation space, systems are being designed to work together. In industry, it isn’t and that’s where the engineering component comes in. It’s a very complex side of things, especially when you’re spanning a bunch of different corporate departments like security, clinical healthcare, facilities and IT. All of those departments have different systems from different decades and we’re trying to bring them all together so they can work as one.”
The Saskatchewan Hospital in North Battleford and its staff and patients are beneficiaries of this technology.
This project was a recent undertaking for Delco Automation. There are more than 10,000 connected devices working together across door control, wireless staff communication, real-time location tracking, intrusion detection, water control, video surveillance, fire alarms, lighting and perimeter security.
“It is very hard to make those systems talk to each other,” Reed said. “Your fire alarm system doesn’t typically talk to your camera system. They just don’t connect. That’s why they need software in the middle to broker that communication and provide automation. IPFusion is that software.”
