An Industry 4.0 focused, remote control configuration for smart actuators to enable social distancing practices.

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In response to new social distancing normalities and in consideration of occupational safety, industries must respond by implementing measures to standardise social distancing in working environments. This is achieved by promoting changed practices such as home-working, and in line with this, greater remote systems control to minimise physical interaction and increase occupational safety.Today, the actuator industry operates on a model for the provision of continual support and engineers on-site to carry out calibration, reconfiguration, and diagnosis of faults within a closed system. In response to this expected growth demand for 'Industrial Internet of Things' solutions, the 'SARCC' project makes game-changing advancements, by integrating GPRS/3G/4G capability and developing the relevant user interfaces to enable remote-control access.SARCC provides a market unique proposition that enables our customer segments of installers/service suppliers and end-user operators, throughout many industries, to:1. Rapidly reconfigure actuators within processes to maximise efficiency and improve accuracy.2. Remotely diagnose faults resulting in fewer engineer visits required.3. Adjust business models to react to market needs rapidly by adjusting process operations in real-time.4. Installation/commissioning is made more efficient by enhanced access to diagnostics data.These benefits result in reduced capital costs and operating costs as well as improving process efficiency.By way of example, in the instance of food production irrigation systems, actuator valves are often remotely located. If manual operation is too labour intensive, remote control results in high capital costs for energy supply and control access infrastructure. With SARCC project enhancements to our actuators, on-site control, configuration and diagnostics are completed remotely (with energy supply from a small solar panel). Remote control minimises costs while increasing control access.In the case of a building fire, a gas pipeline could be shut-off remotely thus reducing risk and damage potential.SARCC also responds to the needs of next-generation water networks, where leaks are detected on the water supply network in remote locations -- a current manual operation can be performed remotely and rapidly to switch supply lines to maintain water supply and reduce leak impact.Our solution is beneficial for many industries, notably: food production/processing, healthcare, gas/water supply, office/apartment buildings.Having already developed a prototype, during the project we plan to:* build-in additional software features;* develop customer front-end and access;* create customer system integration interfaces and apps;* commercially demonstrate the integrated system.