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Intelligent control system for railway points heating with supreme saving of electicity

Objective

KTN Ltd., a research driven Latvian SME is making innovation in the railways automation proposing a control system IntelHeat for fully automatic management of railway points heating during winters by continuous monitoring of snowing and other weather conditions. IntelHeat will satisfy customers’ needs to optimize heating regimes, will automate the process and will provide effective savings of electricity. That also means less influence to climate via decreased carbon footprints of the systems. The core of IntelHeat is a proprietary innovative optical precipitation sensor for real-time monitoring of snowing both in the atmosphere and remotely near the point. This unique feature accounts possible clogging of the point by blizzard from a passing train. The principle is based on multi-channel acquisition using a combination of diffuse and direct reflection of infrared light from the precipitation particles. Algorithms for electrical heating use inputs of a set of real-time meteorological data from the sensor to manage the regime flexibly. Functional prototypes were built and pass trial exploitation on the Latvian Railways. First positive conclusions about adequacy of detection, reliability of work and savings of energy (up to 80% in critical periods and 50% in average) were obtained. The end-users are national and EU railway companies. The potential market is estimated from initial implementation in Latvia as 800 pieces of precipitation sensor installed at points and 220 IntelHeat systems for heating control cabinets. In Europe: up to 20,000 sensors and 5,000 systems. Globally: up to 50,000 and 15,000 pieces accordingly. The market may start from about 3 M€ in Latvia and reach more than 60 M€ in Europe and 200 M€ worldwide. The project aims at feasibility study in 1st Phase and creation of the commercial product in 2nd Phase. For the implementation of the 1st phase, the applicant will mobilize its own R&D personnel and experts from Latvian universities.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) H2020-SMEInst-2016-2017

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Coordinator

SIA KTN
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 50 000,00
Address
DZERBENES STREET 14
LV-1006 RIGA
Latvia

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SME

The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.

Yes
Region
Latvija Latvija Rīga
Activity type
Private for-profit entities (excluding Higher or Secondary Education Establishments)
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 71 429,00
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