iCanB

Environmentally friendly, safe and hygienic urban drainage is a basic requirement of modern civilization. Comprehensive inspection and maintenance of the relevant systems is therefore essential. Particularly after heavy rainfall events, the flow of water introduces foreign substances into the sewer system, making regular inspections up to 30 times a year necessary. Several thousand kilometers of sewer network are not uncommon in metropolitan regions. Maintenance work is usually carried out manually, e.g. by inspection or by crawler cameras with a limited range.

To make this process more efficient, the iKannB project is developing an innovative inspection system for storage sewers.

To this end, a project partner is developing a floating and submersible sensor data acquisition unit that can be fed into the sewer system as required using automated output devices. The floating bodies are able to pass through pumping stations and can be filtered out, also automatically, for reuse upstream or in sewage treatment plants. With the help of gateways installed in sewer shafts, the sensor data is fed to a downstream remote station using modern transmission paths. IDiAL is developing a software component for secure transmission from the gateways to a data platform, which is also being developed by IDiAL. The data transfer within the gateway will be realized jointly by the Westphalian University of Applied Sciences and IDiAL as part of the implementation phase.

The task of the data platform is to receive measurement data from a variable number of sensors in an efficient manner. The received data is then persisted and individually processed for the corresponding use case. The data is provided in a dynamic manner so that the diverse requirements of the various data consumers are met. Due to the fact that critical infrastructure is to be digitally adapted, the project is also working intensively on bringing state-of-the-art cloud technologies in line with the strict requirements of infrastructure projects. At the same time, the focus is on future-proofing by means of expandability by third parties in order to be able to cover later use cases that were not known at the time of development.