Badger Meter forms alliance with DCSI

Milwaukee, WI—Badger Meter Inc. recently agreed with Distribution Control Systems Inc. (DCSI) to jointly develop, sell, and license a new, automatic meter reading (AMR) technology.

By Control Engineering Staff October 5, 2004

Milwaukee, WI— Badger Meter Inc. recently agreed with Distribution Control Systems Inc. (DCSI) to jointly develop, sell, and license a new, automatic meter reading (AMR) technology. DCSI is a subsidiary of ESCO Technologies Inc.

Badger and DCSI will incorporate Badger’s Orion AMR radio frequency technology with DCSI’s TWACS power line communication (PLC) product for use in North American utilities. In most applications, DCSI power line transponders will be capable of receiving Orionradio frequency meter readings from all water and gas meters equipped with Orion transmitters.

Richard Meeusen, Badger’s chairman, president and CEO, says utilities now using the Orion mobile system will be able to communicate to DCSI’s PLC product. ‘This gives Badger another AMR solution to meet customers individual meter-reading needs. We’ve learned that when it comes to AMR, there’s no one size fits all solution,’ says Meeusen.

For multi-service utilities, such as electric combined with water and/or gas, DCSI can now provide a comprehensive AMR solution. The Orion AMR may be installed on water and gas meters as a mobile AMR system, and automatically converted to a network system as the DCSI integrated meter transponders are installed in electric meters.

‘We’re looking forward to working with Badger Meter on integrating data from non-proximate water and gas meters into our power line carrier fixed network. This will extend and round out the TWACS short hop radio frequency system,’ adds Bob Richardson, DCSI’s senior VP for new business development. ‘And, it will enable a utility to communicate with and collect demand reads from every meter site in their system, submerged or not.’

Meeusen adds that, ‘We’re pleased to be working with DCSI, and look forward to bringing this product to market in 2005. The utility industry has talked about migration of mobile AMR systems to fixed network AMR systems for years. It’s now a reality.’

Badger manufactures flow measurement and control technology, developed both internally and with other companies, and provides digital connectivity to leading AMR technologies.

Control Engineering Daily News DeskJim Montague, news editorjmontague@reedbusiness.com