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Improving Water Conservation with Edge Gateways and Data Analytics

Water is one of the world’s most precious resources — and, unfortunately, there simply isn’t enough to go around. Already, 2.3 billion people live in water-stressed countries; that number is only expected to rise over time. Much of this scarcity can be traced to our wastewater usage. It’s estimated that 380 billion cubic meters of wastewater are produced each year; that’s five-fold the volume passing through Niagara Falls each year. Even worse — scientists expect that, by 2050, global production will have increased by 51%. With this in mind, one Canadian city searched for a solution to increase its water conservation efforts.

The metropolitan worked with the digital solutions company Uzinakod to improve its wastewater treatment system by better managing its rotary water pumps.

To accomplish this, the company wanted better data points for its maintenance teams. Uzinakod did this by using IoT sensors and gateways to provide more data in a more accessible way. This, in turn, enabled predictive maintenance practices, which limited unplanned downtime and allowed the pumps to run more efficiently.

Getting this data, however, presented a challenge: The software running on the gateways needed to be lightweight enough to run on a low-resource CPU but robust enough to collect and transform data from a broad range of devices and sensors. Enter FairCom Edge.

This converged IoT platform unifies messaging and analytics into an all-in-one solution. And with the embedded database, Uzinakod was able to collect and persist sensor data on the edge. Combining this ability with FairCom’s edge-to-cloud and edge-to-edge data controls led to intelligent control systems and predictive maintenance capabilities.

“If we didn’t have FairCom, it would add a lot of work to gather data,” says Cédric Melançon, the director of IoT and Industry 4.0 at Uzinakod. “That’s what I like about FairCom. You have everything, all in one. Just set it up, and it’s ready to use.”

With these Edge-powered IoT gateways installed, the city’s rotary water pumps produce readable, actionable data for overseers. This means the city can now use analytics to help maintenance eliminate unplanned downtown and maximize runtimes. In addition, FairCom Edge can be configured — with little-to-no code — to aggregate data before sending it to the cloud, which also decreases bandwidth costs.

“The ease of use is a key benefit for FairCom Edge,” Melançon says. His team plans to continue innovating with FairCom Edge as an OEM solution. In the meantime, Canada’s rotary pumps continue to efficiently churn out clean, usable water.

One wastewater treatment center won’t be enough to solve the world’s water programs, but with Uzinakod’s lightweight IoT gateway solution and FairCom Edge’s robust capabilities, we can bring more machines together and more water for all.

To learn more about how FairCom is revolutionizing the edge space, visit our website, or watch our video on Uzinakod’s rotary pump solution.

Article by FairCom

Pedro Mier

Pedro Mier holds a degree in Telecommunications Engineer ing from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, MBA from ESADE and PADE from IESE. He is currently President of AMETIC (Association of Electronics, Information Technology and Telecommunications Companies of Spain), Shareholder and Chairman of the Board of Directors of TRYO Aerospace & Electronics, Board Member of the Premo Group and Committee of CTTC. member of Space Angels Network and Member of the Sc ientific Advisory