Today’s radio technologies for tomorrow’s smart water valve

Speaker: Dirk Indigne, Hydroko
Lieven Hollevoet, Quicksand

Company/ Institute: Hydroko and Quicksand

Event: 18th work meeting

Date: 5 February 2015

Abstract:

Future smart cities require smart utility meter devices. One particularly challenging smart device to design is the water valve/meter combination. There is no energy supply available, so the device needs to be battery powered. The required lifetime of the device on a single battery is 16 years. New environmental legislations require the utility companies to take active measures agains waisting water in case of leaks. Water will be declared to be a human right, so closing a valve in case of payment problems will no longer be an option.
We developed a lead-free smart water meter and valve combination that enables realtime monitoring of the water supply. The water valve can close itself autonomously in case leaks or burst pipes are detected. The valve can also be throttled dynamically to deliver a constant reduced flow rate.

In this session we compare available LPWAN (Low Power Wide Area Network) communication technologies that we tested and indicate attention points for utility companies who plan to rollout or use comparable networks.

Slides: click here  to download (Community members only, login required)