Low cost wireless flood sensors effective solution in sewer pits
Over 18 months, PSI Tech has been working on a proof of concept trial for a sewer vacuum system in Lincolnshire for Anglian Water, to prove that a combination of low cost pressure, vacuum and flood sensors and an end to end remote asset monitoring platform greatly minimises the significant time and effort spent on manual maintenance of multiple remote sites. More importantly, the solution provides that vital early warning of potential damage caused by floods, and the rectification costs, complaints and even potential danger caused by the event.
Anglian has a wider ambition to value data as much as assets, prioritising proactive maintenance. The three Urban.io sensors – Vacuum, Pressure and Flood Sensors – work together to give digital insight into failure mode root cause and enable rapid positional pinpointing on the network. The sensors are battery powered (2 year battery life) and ideal for vacuum valve or air valve fault detection over a wide disparate area. This is a key point, as up to now, digital twinning of unpowered assets has not been commercially viable. The vacuum sewer pots are typically in very remote, subterranean, hard to get at locations, where it is impossible to run cables to them for communication purposes.
LoRa wireless signalling
The solution is self sustained Gateways (each Gateway covers a 5km radius and reports on up to 2000 sensors) that run on solar panels to communicate using LoRa signal to the sensors installed inside the sewer. The data is relayed to the Urban.io Cloud Platform on a near real-time basis. Within the software platform, a real life virtual reality has been built so that the habitat and local area can be viewed to help with pre-planning of maintenance. Measured data is securely displayed in the cloud platform for reporting purposes.
Anglian Water have been pleased with the trial and plan to scale up. We feature in a news article in Utility Week (scroll to 4th article, note: gated to non subscribers).
You can download the full news release here >>Anglian Water trials innovative new pollution reducing technology.
Find out more about our Industrial IoT wireless remote monitoring solutions
We are long established engineering innovators in the industrial workspace, using our extensive control system knowledge to complement Industrial IoT. Our partners, Urban.io, are the data and sensor specialists.
