Aquiba selects Energy Micro low power MCU for next generation smart water meter

OSLO, NORWAY: Energy Micro has announced that Aquiba, a joint venture between Sentec and Takahata Precision, has selected Energy Micro’s energy friendly EFM32 Gecko microcontroller for use in its groundbreaking A200 smart water meter.

Chosen for its ultra low power performance, processing capability and peripheral set, the EFM32G890F128 microcontroller handles the A200’s high accuracy flow measurement, data logging, secure communication and application firmware upgrades.

Providing a complete platform for intelligent water networks, the Aquiba A200 smart water meter outperforms traditional mechanical meters, has no moving parts and provides world-class metrology ensuring high accuracy measurement even at the lowest flow rates and over the product’s full service lifespan.

To allow water operators to plan for future changes in climate and network infrastructure, the A200 also has the in-built flexibility to enable it to be rapidly adapted to meet future metering requirements.

Mark England, CEO of Sentec said: “In designing the A200, future-proofing was a key consideration and choosing the right microcontroller for the job was vital. We needed to move to a microcontroller that could give us the 32-bit data processing but at a power consumption that would deliver a battery life of 15 years.

“It needed to be able to support our unique operating system and modular software and handle over-the-air field upgrades as well. The Energy Micro part gave us the performance we needed on all counts and with its ARM Cortex-M3 core, provides a stable, non-proprietary architecture that opens the way for further next-generation product developments.”

Energy Micro CEO, Geir Førre, said: “Aquiba’s adoption of the EFM32 in its A200 smart water meter underlines the microcontroller’s low power, 32-bit processing advantages to energy sensitive metering product design. The A200 is cutting-edge technology that makes full use of the EFM32’s capabilities and demonstrates how the combination of modular software and a highly flexible microcontroller architecture can dramatically cut time to market.”

In real-world benchmark tests, Energy Micro’s EFM32 Gecko microcontroller has proven capable of consuming a quarter of the battery energy required by alternative 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit microcontrollers. Built around the 32-bit ARM Cortex-M3 processor core, the microcontroller is characterised by very low active and standby power consumption, fast processing and wake-up time and highly flexible low energy modes.

It provides an array of low power peripheral functions, able to be operated autonomously and supports energy debugging, through its unique Advanced Energy Monitoring system and Simplicity Studio toolset.