SWAM

Beia ConsultEuropean R&D Projects

Smart WAter Management system for better environmental sustainability

SWAM is a novel product for better environmental sustainability addressing a new water market integrating emerging technologies.

SWAM will offer an innovative end-to-end solution from Smart Probe to Smart Visualization and by considering ground-breaking aspects: multi-protocol for IoT connectivity, cybersecurity and traceability by design to provide a valuable tool for water management encompassing quality monitoring, safe and security aspects, decision support and cost-efficiency management.

SWAM wants to support Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the implementation of EU initiatives (IEP Water) by providing a robust, smart, effective and tailored water management system. SWAM addresses the need to develop the market of digital services for water management stakeholders with those expected impacts: improve the decision making and performance of water infrastructures, enhance interoperability and real-time data accuracy, and reduce costs for water utilities and monitoring.

The SWAM route to market is driven by a product sales model and a value-based pricing strategy to maximize market penetration. The main product is an IoT end-to-end solution composed of platform and probe. SWAM will offer different tailored versions of its platform to suit better the needs of different target clients, e.g. water suppliers, utilities, water intensive agriculture. Other revenues may come from derived concepts: software use licenses, probes sales or rental, or services provision.

Estimated results: 

The beneficiaries or customers concerned are represented by a wide range of private or public water distribution operators, operators who want to optimize the operation of their networks. Adopting the SWAM solution will generate various benefits:
• Improving service quality and customer experience (QoS and QoE)
• Optimization of O&M (Operation and Maintenance) water infrastructures aimed at reducing operational costs,
reduction of water losses and / or better preventive maintenance.
• Reduction and optimization of consumption (electricity, chemicals and other consumables).
• Better adaptability and simple system extension through a modular system design.

Website EUREKA: https://www.eurostars-eureka.eu/node/555013

Official website: http://agile.ro/swam/

SWAM FLYER

Project ID: EUROSTARS-2019-E!12889-SWAM

Contract: nr.128_2019

Funded by UEFISCDI – Program 3 – European and international cooperation – Subprogram 3.5 Other European and international initiatives and programs, traditional EUREKA (network) projects, EUREKA cluster, EUROSTARS

Title:  Smart WAter Management system for better environmental sustainability

Project Coordinator: BEIA Consult International S.R.L.

Director: Dr.ing. George SUCIU

The total value of the budget: 2.880.570 lei;

The total value of the co-founding: 909.170 lei

Non-refundable value: 1.971.400 lei

Consortium: Romania – BEIA Consult International

Contract duration: 36 months (10/12/2019 – 09/12/2022)

Contact: George Suciu – R&D and Innovation Manager

Telefon 0744914798
Fax 0213323006
E-Mail george@beia.ro

Phases and activities

1. Defining use cases, requirements and evaluation criteria 10/12/2019 -30/06/2020

Activity 1.1 Definition of use cases (correlated with activity T2.1 of the international project)

Activity 1.2 Defining the requirements and evaluation criteria (correlated with activity T2.2 of the international project)

Results

In this phase, the definition of use cases, requirements and evaluation criteria, the use case for Romania was described, as well as the definition of evaluation requirements and criteria. At this stage, relevant information was provided about the pilot scenario, KPI and an architecture project of the planned solution. Also in this phase, the requirements and technical specifications were formulated, because this scenario offers the main aspects of the ways to develop the pilot program.

Dissemination activities:

Papers and publications

  • INTELLIGENT WATER MANAGEMENT SOLUTION FOR SMART CITIES AND SMART AGRICULTURE – WRW2020 Conference
  • Challenges and opportunities for agriculture telemetry using data from IoT, drones and satellites – “THE 28TH INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM
    “”DELTAS AND WETLANDS”” 2020″
  • Intelligent water solution for smart agriculture – EXPOAPA 2020

Events

The results achieved  have been disseminated in the following events: EU Sustainable Water Week, a meeting of the working group organized on March 10, 2020 at the headquarters of the Ministry of Environment, Waters and Forests, CCW 2020, Knowledge4Innovation Forum.

2. SWAM platform design 01/07/2020 – 31/12/2020

Activity 2.1 SWAM solution architecture design (Correlated with T3.3 activity in the international project)

Within this activity, different types of architectures were developed, which eventually led to the final architecture of the project. The final IoT Beia architecture part is described, with the MQTT protocols part, the description of the parameters that are monitored and how the measured data is transmitted to the visualization part. The cloud architecture is based on standards to achieve interoperability. It is robust, scalable and flexible to adapt to the changes needed in the future so that it remains successful in the market. In general, this system architecture supports various functionalities, such as integrated data in real time and outside the self-service platform for the distributed water network, supports data processing mechanisms and algorithms to allow real-time decision making and distributed control. . Also, in the SWAM architecture the data is processed after the IoT stage, and it is added to a database.

Activity 2.2 Design of functional modules, interfaces and connectors (correlated with activity T2.3 of the international project)

The design of functional modules of interfaces and connectors, by combining as concretely as possible the architecture of the water quality monitoring system is the basis for developing a platform for accurate analysis using M2M / IoT radio-telemetry systems and a Cloud platform for processing collected data. IoT-based automation systems benefit from quality of service (QoS), including service-oriented monitoring of various QoS features. Starting from the development of a platform within this activity, the hardware and software components are described, which are the basis of the intelligent water quality monitoring system. In addition to the description of these components, an important role is played by data transmission, which connectors are used for better data recording, as well as the protocols and data connections used.

Results

The architecture of the SWAM system unifies the technical and functional specifications and ensures that the data and control flows are adequate, and the integration of each subsystem runs smoothly during implementation. This architecture is based on standards to achieve interoperability. The system is robust, scalable and flexible to adapt to the changes needed in the future, so that it remains successfully on the market. In general, this system architecture supports various functionalities, such as integrated data in real time and outside the self-service platform for the distributed water network, supports data processing mechanisms and algorithms to allow real-time decision making and distributed control. . In addition, reliability and security are also taken into account in this architecture. Integrity, confidentiality, authentication, authorization, accounting are aspects of security, while reliability covers guaranteed message delivery, detection and removal of duplicates.

Dissemination activities

Events

The results achieved  have been disseminated in the following events: Water Knowledge Europe 2020 – Horizon Europe Brokerage event, Water Knowledge Europe 2020 – EU Green Deal Call Brokerage event, Worldwaterweek GoToWebinar, GoTech World 2020, Smart City Expo World Congress 2020

 

3.Design of the platform and security solutions 01/01/2021 – 30/06/2021

Activity III.1 Identifying cybersecurity risks

Activity AIII.1 presents the probability of risk for crop contamination. Therefore, the likelihood of a water security risk depends not only on the likelihood of such risks occurring, but also on the severity of such risks. Water quality hazards and risks can be assessed and minimized with various risk assessment tools and frameworks. Different types of risks include: risks that may affect health (chemical risks or various microbes), physical risks and cyber security risks.
The most common tools for ensuring the quality security of the water used in the irrigation system are: the Water Safety Plan, and the Quantitative Assessment of Microbial Risks. The water safety plan can be used to identify potential hazards in the water, to assess the significance and likelihood of risks and to determine the necessary risk management measures to reduce them (minimizing hazards and ensuring water quality). In complex problems, this may not always directly mean eliminating threats, but only passivating them. An example could be the use of disinfection against detected microbial hazards or the use of activated carbon filtration to remove organic compounds such as pesticides.
The SWAM project presents an example of an early warning signal that triggers the process of ensuring water protection and safety by taking samples for laboratory analysis, followed by risk assessment focused on the observed hazards. The risk assessment process should initiate management actions to mitigate those that affect health and stem from the identified hazards.

Activity III.2 Design of the security solution based on blockchain technology

Activity AIII.2 describes the best data security route, which consists of periodically storing the values of the monitored water quality parameters in its own centralized platform. In our case, the information about the water quality is sent periodically according to the changes of the values coming from the parameters and the platform receives the information through the security mechanisms with the help of a register. To store all this data you also need a timestamp, which is stored in the database and finally an encrypted backup is generated in an external location to save the information in case of unavailability or loss.

Results

The design of the platform and security solutions is a step towards data security and safety as precise as possible, thus contributing to a good quality of the data monitored within the SWAM project. In the following steps, the most precise controls on cyber threats are considered, such as: a Gateway-which verifies the authenticity of the platform by authenticating the certificate, the communication protocols between gateway and platform use TLS / SSL security (MQTTS / HTTPS). In addition, an payload encryption / decryption process, based on the single PSK per probe, is implemented at an additional security level.

Dissemination activities

Papers and presentations

  • EXPO APA 2021 – The paper “Intelligent Solution for Water Quality in Precision Agriculture” was presented on November 4, 2020.
    Authors: Cristina B, George S, Oana O, Sabina S

    • Participation in Water Distribution Infrastructure WG (WDI WG) – WIE 2021 – Water Innovation Europe on 10th June 2021.

    https://twitter.com/beiaconsult/status/1402197576502366209?s=20

Events

The results achieved  have been disseminated in the following events: “4 DELTA” DDNI Scientific Event Community, 4th edition – EDAPHIC-BLOOM Danube, Eureka Global Innovation Summit 2021, Water Knowledge Europe 2021 – Spring Edition

 

 

  • Participation in Student scientific communication session 2021

4. Development and integration of SWAM solution components 01/07/2021 – 31/12/2021

5. Implementation and validation of the SWAM solution01/01/2022 – 30/06/2022

6. Defining the exploitation and internationalization strategy, disseminating the results01/07/2022 – 09/12/2022

7. Reporting economic effects 10/12/2022 – 09/12/2023

8. Reporting economic effects 10/12/202 – 09/12/2024

9. Reporting economic effects 10/12/2024 – 09/12/2025

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by a grant of the Romanian Ministry of Research and Innovation, CCCDI-UEFISCDI, project number EUROSTARS-2019-E!12889-SWAM, within PNCDI III

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