Periodic Reporting for period 3 - WATERSIGN (WATERSIGN: Smart Water Monitoring & Leakage Detection)
Reporting period: 2021-05-01 to 2022-02-28
Water shortages are a major problem all over the world and affect the lives of billions of people. Water shortages affect the quantity of food farmers can grow, the urban and rural development and the sanitation standards. The fact such an enormous amount of water is wasted due to improper management and monitoring is a problem that must be addressed. As a matter of fact, most water used today is not monitored, with an estimated 44-88 million m3 of water lost every day due to leakages, bursts and theft. This is equivalent to the daily consumption of 200-400 million people, totalling 14 Billion m3. There is an unmet need to significantly reduce this tremendous amount of water wasted.
Water management faces challenges related to different types of losses. To handle situations of leakage, bursts or obstructions in water service, advanced technology offers determinant assistance. TAVLIT’s WaterSign System developed and patented a technology that can control water supply and irrigation structures and detect water losses in real time. The technology is easily applicable, low cost and can identify any type of water loss risk via one sensor installed at the entrance of the water system and WaterSign-markers placed at each water exit. This innovative solution uses the water itself as a transmitter of information. The EU-funded WaterSign project has prepared the technology for the market, and through pilot cases in Israel during the project, will now (after the Covid-19 pandemic) be able to expand to agriculture and landscape areas in Europe for demonstration pilots in readiness for full commercialization.
Water management faces challenges related to different types of losses. To handle situations of leakage, bursts or obstructions in water service, advanced technology offers determinant assistance. TAVLIT’s WaterSign System developed and patented a technology that can control water supply and irrigation structures and detect water losses in real time. The technology is easily applicable, low cost and can identify any type of water loss risk via one sensor installed at the entrance of the water system and WaterSign-markers placed at each water exit. This innovative solution uses the water itself as a transmitter of information. The EU-funded WaterSign project has prepared the technology for the market, and through pilot cases in Israel during the project, will now (after the Covid-19 pandemic) be able to expand to agriculture and landscape areas in Europe for demonstration pilots in readiness for full commercialization.
Over the first year of the WaterSign project, significant progress has been made on the engineering level to turn the WaterSign System into a commercial product. This includes the completion of:
- a commercial, low-power, small and inexpensive electronic controller that is fed from a solar panel and is designed to work in external environmental conditions.
- a commercial marker suitable for mass production by injection molding plastic. The new marker is actually a dual marker that is suitable for both regulated water systems and non-regulated water systems. In addition, the marker has a wide range of water flow operation, which allows it to be installed in both 2” and 1.5” water systems.
- a cloud-based server that interfaces between the controllers located in the field and the users. The server collects the raw information from the controllers, runs the unique algorithm of Watersign and accordingly provides processed data, alerts and control of systems in the field according to customer's needs.
- an improved algorithm, developed by switching to binary encoding instead of Duty-Cycle encoder, as well as by adding an additional synchronization Bit to each marker ID. This BIT increases the amount of semi-orthogonal encodings to more than 40, meaning, better ID separation more than 40 markers in the system.
- a user application that is also suitable for use on a mobile phone. The application is user-friendly, allows initial setup of the water system in an intuitive way, allows monitoring and control of the water system remotely.
We have performed field tests with integration of all parts of the system, markers, controller, software, algorithm and user interface. The tests were performed in Israel in a regulated water system (in the Palmachim area) and in an unregulated water system (in the area of Kfar-Harif). The system is monitored and remotely controlled by the dedicated application developed.
We have invested time and effort in marketing and promotional activities that were stopped unfortunately due to the Covid 19 pandemic. We visited key customers in Spain and France in order to discuss installation of pilot projects, presented in several international conferences and an exhibition and met with international VC’s. In addition, updated marketing material was prepared and a clip from the field trials was uploaded to the project dedicated web site.
Over the second year we installed a full-scale pilot in Israel in addition to the one in Kfar Harif. We tested the system in various scenarios and changed the design of the marker accordingly. We also started the design of the molds and completed the production BOM for the controller. We developed the GUI and improved the algorithm. We also participated in Virtual conferences including presentation in the World Water Innovation Summit- in London (Feb 21 and LA in October 20202 and 2021). We also participated in EIMA2020 Virtual exhibition and in TAG-Isle Utilities presenting to 80 municipalities from all over Europe.
Over the third year we continued with the field testing, completed the design and manufacturing of the molds, improved the algorithm and injected 500 parts for assembly of markers. We also completed the concept design of the small size marker. We also met with several potential partners- Rivulis that its equipment is installed in Megiddo, Netafim, NDJ, Aquestia, Bermad and Talis- Raphael. We also had high level discussions with Irritec from Italy. TAVLIT also prepared 10 commercial demonstration systems including markers assembled from injected components that will be used for demonstration in Europe in the upcoming months.
- a commercial, low-power, small and inexpensive electronic controller that is fed from a solar panel and is designed to work in external environmental conditions.
- a commercial marker suitable for mass production by injection molding plastic. The new marker is actually a dual marker that is suitable for both regulated water systems and non-regulated water systems. In addition, the marker has a wide range of water flow operation, which allows it to be installed in both 2” and 1.5” water systems.
- a cloud-based server that interfaces between the controllers located in the field and the users. The server collects the raw information from the controllers, runs the unique algorithm of Watersign and accordingly provides processed data, alerts and control of systems in the field according to customer's needs.
- an improved algorithm, developed by switching to binary encoding instead of Duty-Cycle encoder, as well as by adding an additional synchronization Bit to each marker ID. This BIT increases the amount of semi-orthogonal encodings to more than 40, meaning, better ID separation more than 40 markers in the system.
- a user application that is also suitable for use on a mobile phone. The application is user-friendly, allows initial setup of the water system in an intuitive way, allows monitoring and control of the water system remotely.
We have performed field tests with integration of all parts of the system, markers, controller, software, algorithm and user interface. The tests were performed in Israel in a regulated water system (in the Palmachim area) and in an unregulated water system (in the area of Kfar-Harif). The system is monitored and remotely controlled by the dedicated application developed.
We have invested time and effort in marketing and promotional activities that were stopped unfortunately due to the Covid 19 pandemic. We visited key customers in Spain and France in order to discuss installation of pilot projects, presented in several international conferences and an exhibition and met with international VC’s. In addition, updated marketing material was prepared and a clip from the field trials was uploaded to the project dedicated web site.
Over the second year we installed a full-scale pilot in Israel in addition to the one in Kfar Harif. We tested the system in various scenarios and changed the design of the marker accordingly. We also started the design of the molds and completed the production BOM for the controller. We developed the GUI and improved the algorithm. We also participated in Virtual conferences including presentation in the World Water Innovation Summit- in London (Feb 21 and LA in October 20202 and 2021). We also participated in EIMA2020 Virtual exhibition and in TAG-Isle Utilities presenting to 80 municipalities from all over Europe.
Over the third year we continued with the field testing, completed the design and manufacturing of the molds, improved the algorithm and injected 500 parts for assembly of markers. We also completed the concept design of the small size marker. We also met with several potential partners- Rivulis that its equipment is installed in Megiddo, Netafim, NDJ, Aquestia, Bermad and Talis- Raphael. We also had high level discussions with Irritec from Italy. TAVLIT also prepared 10 commercial demonstration systems including markers assembled from injected components that will be used for demonstration in Europe in the upcoming months.
The 10 commercial demonstration systems will be installed after the project period with potential partners in Europe. After the completion of the testing, TAVLIT will offer a commercial monitoring system for both Agriculture and Rural applications. The WaterSign platform will provide an affordable monitoring system enabling more users to adopt the technology and monitor and manage their water systems, thus saving water and money, as leakages and theft will be minimized.
TAVLIT will also complete the development of the smaller size 1” marker that will be manufactured after the project, expanding the company’s offering and bringing the efficient and economical monitoring and management to applications like smart homes, management of water in commercial buildings and into the municipal world - saving millions of m3 of water and money.
TAVLIT will also complete the development of the smaller size 1” marker that will be manufactured after the project, expanding the company’s offering and bringing the efficient and economical monitoring and management to applications like smart homes, management of water in commercial buildings and into the municipal world - saving millions of m3 of water and money.