Water and Air Quality Monitoring in Civil Works

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The building industry needs to reduce the environmental impact generated by its activity to improve the sustainability regulations compliance and, at the same time, increase its competitiveness reducing costs.

This is the aim of the VisionTech4Life, an initiative as a result of Basque Country companies and research centers cooperation, to know and mitigate the environmental effects which implies any civil work.

For that, they have developed an environmental impacts detection system in real time which allows measure water quality an other atmospheric parameters based on Libelium wireless sensor networks technology.

This project has been deployed in the “Villapérez” water treatment plant construction, located in Oviedo (Asturias, Spain).

Oviedo, Asturias, Spain

Oviedo, Asturias, Spain

Helped by the Environmental Surveillance Plan which exists in the construction, they identified the surroundings and made the most sensible points in order to measure the water, air and noise quality. For these last parameters, they selected the check points close to houses placed in that area. In these points were installed the noise and particle matter sensors.

Water sensor calibrating works in the water treatment plant

Water sensor calibrating works in the water treatment plant

The project is equipped with four Waspmote Plug & Sense! Sensor Platform connected by a Meshlium Gateway with an outwards public IP. One of the nodes has a M2M connection and the three others use a Zigbee 802.15.4 communication protocol.

Water treatment plant monitoring

Water treatment plant monitoring

The four Waspmote Plug & Sense! Sensor Platform installed monitor the following environmental and water quality parameters:

Installation of Particle Matter and Noise sensors

The Waspmote Plug & Sense! autonomous sensors which measure the water quality are installed in the processed water from the water treatment plant way out manhole. From there, data is sent to the Meshlium Gateway and the information is processed in VisionTech4Life apps, which send alerts and enables to analyze the results in the medium and long term.

The partners of VisionTech4Life project are the civil works company Fulcrum, the Technological Research Institute Desuto Tech and the company Erabi Tecnología Audiovisual.

The solution integrates technology, efficiency, sustainability and the real condition control of impacts in a telematic way. It includes from detection, control and monitoring of impacts to the generation of alarms and reports to ease the decision making and to allow a proper intervention.

Main screen of VisionTech4Life web app

Main screen of VisionTech4Life web app

Costs and response time savings

This system enables to reduce the measurement time and the impacts monitoring between a 40% and an 80%, and shorten the response time in any alarm situation in a 90%. Besides, this methodology represents a 40 % savings in costs that currently are taken with any measure of environmental correction after an unfavorable impact. And not only it lets minimize the harm but also stops it just in the instant in which it is happening.

“At the beginning of the project we thought in developing everything from scratch by means of Arduino. However, when we knew the developing possibilities which offers Libelium technology with Waspmote offers we perfectly that it was the product we needed to offer the proper service” says Eneko from Erabi. “With the first kit and with the training given, we developed the first prototype which convinced us that it was the product and the Arduino evolution we needed”, adds.

The technological quality of every equipment and solutions, the integration possibilities, the counsel and technical support that Libelium offers, besides the great good money value, are some of the factors that the Erabi associates in charge discussed as decisive for the deployment of this project.

Noise and Particle Matter sensor with solar panel

Noise and Particle Matter sensor with solar panel

“We needed send data and readings to the cloud from different locations in the construction with a total autonomy possibility in all aspects”, highlights Eneko. “The electric and sensors network communication autonomy results revolutionary for users”, conclude.

The qualification of teamwork professional profiles for this project has been varied. It has taken part environmental technician responsible of defining and interpret the technology functioning requirements as the service monitoring. Besides, it has participated technology integrators, who were in charge of assembling the system technological components and integrating them, from the data collecting to its processing and sending. At the same time, the software developers were in charge of programming the Libelium devices and the system apps both for mobile devices and the website. And in addition, the tasks carried out by the chemical engineer and the water sensor nodes specialists have been important.

Contact:

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More info:

  • For technical details on Waspmote hardware, sensors and how to program a Smart Water application: Smart Water Board Technical Guide
  • For technical details on Waspmote hardware, sensors and how to program a Smart Cities application: Smart Cities Board Technical Guide
  • For technical details on Waspmote hardware, sensors and how to program a Smart Environment PRO application: Gases PRO Board Technical Guide

References:

  • Erabi: www.erabi.es
  • VisionTech4Life: www.visiontech4life.com/
  • Fulcrum: www.fulcrum.es
  • Technological Research Institute DeustoTech: www.deustotech.deusto.es

Do you want this case study in pdf?

Download it in English🇬🇧  and Spanish🇪🇸  directly to your inbox.

Download