Ariane Controls is a privately-held Canadian company developing PLC (Powerline Communication) solutions for public utilities & building automation.

Technology

Sharing information between different devices is becoming a requirement in a world where information is more and more available. While there are many means of transferring information, cost and reliability are always to be considered. Electric wires constitute a complete network that reaches all areas of a building, regardless of the construction material or floor layouts. This is why powerline communication is clearly becoming an excellent choice to create that inter-devices link.

Powerline communications are not new; they are being used since the early 1900’s. But due to modern, reliable technologies, Electrical, Gas and Water utilities are rapidly adopting powerline as a means to communicate with meters, allowing them to send and receive information on current consumption, on diagnostics and remote control for load managements. Building owners and managers are using powerline communication capable devices to monitor, diagnose and control loads such as lighting & HVAC systems. Security systems are integrating powerline communications more and more into their solutions. For a list of different applications where powerline communication are currently being used please refer to: Products/Applications.
Multiple Powerline communication techniques use different methods to encode information, but in the end everyone agrees that powerline communication will be part of the global architecture linking all devices together in a large network.

After thoroughly analyzing them, Ariane Controls has retained the best one which consists in adding a signal over the power carrier at a much higher frequency than the one used to provide power to connected devices and at a much lower voltage, thus not interfering with any connected devices functionalities.

Products: PLM-1 Chip

The AC-PLM-1 ASIC IC is single chip digital modem implementing a half-duplex Transmitter/receiver function to interface between a host and the power line. Using either a SPI or Parallel port, the host device will be capable of sending and/or receiving information or commands to any other device connected to the power line. The device includes a complete set of high-level functions, enabling designers to easily implement high-performance powerline communication networks. Host can be any microcontroller with an SPI port or any computer with a parallel port.

Applications

Utilities

• Automatic Meter Reading (Electricity, Gas, Water, etc)
• Remote Displays
• Load Shedding
• Remote Diagnostic
• Street Light Monitoring
• Traffic Light Controls
• Lower Cost Inter-Device peer-to-peer networking

Building Automation
• Home Appliances
• Light Switches
• Wall Outlets
• Thermostats / HVAC
• Clocks
• Sensors
• Alarm / Security
• Access Controls
• People Care
• Low-Voltage Controls