SmartWater · Smart Sensor Networks with energy harvesting for real time monitoring in urban Water infrastructure

The SmartWater Programme will improve sensors in the water system by investigating smart sensor networks with Energy Harvesting for real time monitoring of the water infrastructure. The project will look at the problem of limited power resources to carryout monitoring of the water distribution system. Benefits of the research to end users will be: reduced dependency on battery power, reduced installation and maintenance costs, real time monitoring, water consumption reduction, detection of abnormalities in the water supply system and energy saving. These areas are all important to the European Commission’s policy ‘Addressing the challenge of water scarcity and droughts in the European Union’ (2007).The consortium is made up of institutions experienced in hosting international exchanges from the UK, the Netherlands and China. The partners have track records in smart sensor networks and communication, power harvesting technology, real time modelling and control in water distribution system. The six organisations are at the forefront of their fields. The consortium will support established and new partnerships. The exchanges will include delivering work packages and dissemination of results through international conferences and seminars.By combining partner skills, the project will be able to look at the sensor network and identify intelligent power management systems to improve energy consumption. A new long-term research group will emerge from the work, with early stage researchers who have been exposed to a culture of international collaborative research. The consortium will share findings with a large network of contacts outside the collaboration. This will include businesses and research institutions around the globe. The research could then be commercialised into a self powered data logger for water utility companies.