Industries, cities and public bodies need to control the environment in which they operate and its surroundings because of its influence on them, on people's lives or because they depend directly on these environments for their activities. On the one hand, companies need to measure and quantify the factors related to the environment that impact their business. On the other, cities and public bodies need to control the impact that companies and human activity have on the environment. In addition, new European and international directives are demanding that companies, cities and states respect certain pollution levels, and punish harshly those who violate them.
Outside of the plants where the Industry 4.0 is developing, there are many areas in which it is necessary to monitor different parameters related to the environment "air, water and land":
• Air: this refers to the possibility of measuring and controlling harmful gases or events transmitted by air, as well as the monitoring of climate change.
• Water: refers to the processes that influence the complete outdoor water cycle.
• Land: this is about the control of industrial processes or variables, human activity or machines that can directly affect air and water.
Until now, it was not technically nor economically feasible to control and/or monitor many processes, situations or events. The difficulty is higher in a great number of sectors and/or applications in remote, isolated environments, where there is no electricity or communications and autonomous energy systems are required that use batteries that last longer than 10 years. These systems are also quite expensive in industrial environments that require very low power consumption.
On the other hand, smart cities are increasingly demanding new air quality monitoring and management systems that will enable them to monitor the air in cities in real-time and with greater precision. This need cannot be met using current fixed air monitoring stations, which are limited in number and very expensive. In addition, governments need to control climate change, and in order to do so they are looking for solutions that allow them to measure this accurately.
Kunak is an innovative solution to deploy wireless monitoring systems whose ultra-energy efficiency characteristics and end-to-end critical system architecture (from the environmental data analysis device to the platform cloud) provide great advantages in isolated, remote and complex environments, guaranteeing the robustness and integrity of 24/7 communications, which makes it a globally unique solution.
The new Kunak system measures the main greenhouse gases that have direct effects on climate change. In regard to the monitoring of air quality, Kunak solution is unique because it monitors air quality with the same accuracy as official stations with small scale devices at a cost 60 times lower.
Following the market survey conducted in SME Instrument Phase 1, we decided to extend the innovation project in Phase 2 with several technological improvements, testing activities and preparing for large scaled commercialisation of our Kunak System.
The important advantages provided by Kunak compared to current solutions will make it easier for us to be leaders in the new market that is emerging and to fulfil our mission: “Kunak utilises IoT to save the environment”.
