According to a recent announcement, scientists at Elemental Machines are using AT&T Internet of Things (IoT) solutions to make their critical lab equipment smarter. The release outlines how the Elemental Machines Sensory Network gives science-based industries data-driven insights to help customers improve lab operations, research, development and manufacturing. Now, this new partnership with AT&T IoT solutions is making lab monitoring has never been easier for them by constantly monitoring equipment and the environment to glean additional information and improve consistency to avoid research setbacks.
For example, a lab freezer that malfunctions overnight could result in samples of 22 million-year-old ice from the Arctic melting and causing the irretrievable loss of data. With the new Elemental Machines smart lab solution, staff would have received an alert that the freezer wasn’t operating properly and they could then act quickly to save the samples and avoid that costly catastrophe.
The Elemental Machines smart lab solution uses AT&T Control Center and AT&T Global SIM to monitor assets both on site and remotely at all times. Even with Wi-Fi interruptions or lost power, cellular connectivity will keep sending data. The system includes Elements, a set of intelligent wireless sensors that are easy to install and battery-powered that send data wirelessly to Elemental Gateway tablets, which are loaded with AT&T Enterprise Mobility Management. The tablets share data with the Elemental Insights dashboard for easy access and review of all data.
"Our lab operations require a monitoring system that allows our team to track both equipment performance and environmental conditions in near real-time, whether on-site or remotely," said Michael Koeris, PhD, CEO and Founder, Sample6, a food-safety technology company that offers a rapid pathogen-detection system for the food industry. "The Elemental Machines system gives us easy access to performance characterizations of the lab and equipment, immediate alerts if something is amiss or out of spec, and cellular backup so that we can have access to critical data, even if there is a power interruption."
Teams have access to Elemental Insights web-based dashboards that let scientists and their operations counterparts understand usage patterns, identify any maintenance issues, modify research processes as needed, improve experimental reproducibility, and create performance reports for compliance requirements.
"IoT has the potential to disrupt how science is done by allowing massive levels of data to be collected in near real time – from biotech/pharma to materials science to agritech. This requires premium carrier-level services to support the adoption and roll-out of connected systems to various types of users," said Sridhar Iyengar, PhD, CEO and Founder, Elemental Machines. "Offering AT&T's technology and network gives our customers the confidence to place their trust in our solution."
