Problem:     There was a need in the self storage industry to be able to monitor when a particular unit was open. Since most self storage units do not allow access to the owner/management for installing new wiring/equipment, the system to be developed needed to be able to be deployed without adding any new wiring to the facility and had to be capable or being installed without entering the individual units.

Solution:     Group Alpha developed a unique door sensor that would sensor the relative position of a particular door and send back that door's position via a RF link to a controller that would send out alerts to a PC application based on changes in state.The sensors needed to be very low powered since they are battery powered and had to be very low cost because the number of doors within a particular installation could reach several thousand. A set of gateway/repeaters were also developed. These units are distributed throughout the storage facility allowing the RF signals to be relayed via power line communications to the main controller. This allows the entire system to be installed within any proprietary wiring except the single cable that connects the main controller to the PC. This system illustrates the diverse communications technologies that Group Alpha can bring to bear to solve a particular engineering problem.