Facility Management Location: The Netherlands

Project Introduction: In order to reduce pollution and improve the efficiency of public transportation, many cities are encouraging a renaissance of bicycle transportation. The main issue facing such promotions is the inconvenience of bicycle rentals in general; people usually have to return them where they rented them, there aren’t attendees available 24/7 and the locations aren’t always located near commuter hotspots. One city in the Netherlands was looking to create bicycle rental stations for their commuters, and turned to Advantech to help them build a state-of-the-art automated solution.

System Requirements:
Due to the location and nature of these stations, the following requirements were needed to be met by all of the technical components involved.

• Wide working temperature to withstand harsh outdoor environments
• Robust enough to operate 24/7 without constant maintenance
• Low power consumption
• Rich I/Os to connect different peripheral devices
  

Project Implementation:

	PCM-3353F	AMD LX800 PC/104-Plus CPU Module
	PCM-3614I	4/8-port RS-232/422/485 PCI-104 Module

System Diagram:

System Description:
The final system provided users with several ways to pay and register, allowing the release of a bicycle. Once customers arrive at their destination, they can return the bike to any of multiple stations located in the area, and the bike will lock automatically in place, ready for next user. PCM-3614I is used to control the locking mechanism when customers return the bike. There are dozens of bikes in each station, but only a few PCM-3614I’s are needed as there is no complicated wiring and the system works well with low power consumption, which makes it possible to run the entire system using solar cells as well.

Conclusion:
The robust and versatile PCM-36I4I allows this automated system to operate 24/7 under adverse weather conditions and constant use. Moreover, due to the PCI-104’s rich I/O design, it also supports a variety of peripherals, low power consumption and is easy to upgrade and maintain.