Connecting Manhole Covers & Managing Sewage Systems

Across the globe, urban populations are growing rapidly, climate change is an increasing threat, and global sewage and wastewater management systems are ageing. In combination, these three factors are putting enormous pressure on sewage and wastewater infrastructure, and if something isn’t done to mitigate the threat many municipalities are facing a ticking time bomb. Two companies, CTHINGS.CO and NID ApS , have joined forces to address the growing threat posed by inadequate infrastructure, introducing a deceptively simple solution – connected manhole covers – in order to monitor what is going on below ground level.

Cities and municipalities have long tried to monitor sewage lines but because they’re underground and access points have massive manhole covers it’s been very challenging. Very often, a connected device has been put down in the sewer and after two weeks someone has had to go down and manually take the SIM card out, put it in the system, and analyze it. They might have done this at a handful of locations for a few weeks, then moved the devices to a new location. This type of operation is labor intensive and doesn’t offer real time information or the kind of overall data that helps optimize a system in a real way. It isn’t very effective or streamlined, because there’s a big difference between collecting data samples and having data all the time in real time – it’s the difference between crawling and running.

Now, imagine a manhole has been connected for eight or ten months. You’ve been getting data and now you’ve got enough to do some real analysis. You can co-alate that data with information from the weather service and very soon the municipality can get an alarm days before the rain comes. You’ve got information that tells you rain is coming, that this particular area is going to be affected, which means you might well face flooding or other issues. With your connected manhole covers and the data generated you can now address the challenges before they happen, such as emptying the reserves at the wastewater plant to prepare for the overflow. The historical data allows you to create plans for what is coming, rather than just reacting in the moment.

Denmark’s NID ApS is the largest supplier of composite manhole covers in Scandinavia and has a very simple mission: offer the best manhole covers in existence. CTHINGS.CO brings very sophisticated and advanced technological know-how to the table, designing and developing cutting edge end-to-end IoT solutions. By combining their particular strengths, the two companies are able to offer a modern connected manhole cover that can sense what is happening below street level and relay that information to authorities in real time.

“Today, hydraulic systems and theories and models are used to understand what is happening in the sewage systems, but these leave a lot of unknowns,” says Niclas Rønne, CEO at NID ApS. “Connected manhole covers tell you, in a very simple and easy way, when the water rises, where it is rising, and potentially how it’s rising. This is great value in terms of the environment because when you have big rainfalls and thus overflow. Right now, we accept the fact that there actually will be overflow because it would be too big and expensive to design systems differently. As a result, we accept that when it rains the sewage water will flow into fields or lakes or our city streets.

“There’s also the ‘what the heck is actually happening down there’ part. Basically, nobody knows. Imagine you’re working at a municipality and it starts raining. All you do is basically wait until you can see where the problems are. You might be able to take an educated guess, but it’s not backed up by facts. Connecting the manhole covers gives you actionable data and lets you get ahead of the problem in the short term and then plan in the longer term.”

The solution

Traditionally, manhole covers have been made from cast iron and weigh 50-60kg. They’re very heavy and if you have to remove them to get into the pipelines to clean out blockages or address any other challenges – something that commonly happens maybe 20 times a day at various locations in a city – that’s half a ton of lifting that needs to be done by workmen.

Once the new lightweight manhole cover was successfully developed, NID needed a partner that could attach a connected device to the manhole covers so they could send a signal and gather data in real time. This is where CTHINGS.CO expertise came into play.

“NID’s modern composite covers are tough but lightweight and they don’t block the signal, making it possible to install a connected a device. We’ve installed very sensitive devices in the manhole covers that are operating with a 60 GHz signal,” says Arnold Wierzejski, Founder at CTHINGS.CO. “The device has a sensor, a radio modem, and Tele2 IoT SIM cards, and is able to sense in real time everything from water levels or the density of what is blocking the pipes to the build-up of steam and whether the cover has become dislodged as a result. If any of these things happen an alert is immediately sent, allowing the customer to address the problem proactively, rather than reactively, saving time, money, and manpower.

The two companies piloted their solution in a suburb of Copenhagen, where in 2011 there was extensive flooding after 150mm of rain fell in two hours. Despite sitting on the water, Copenhagen has ageing and poorly maintained sewage and wastewater management systems.  and the city knows it has to do something because the cost of doing nothing will cost between 50 and 85 million Euros annually.  The pilot conducted by NID and CTHINGS.CO monitored several locations and during the testing phase 2500 measurements were gathered.

“Normally, you send data once per day,” explains Arnold Wierzejski. “But if the weather forecast says there’s going to be rain, the system adjusts and responds in real time by increasing the frequency of measurements and reports, so that flooding and other complications can either be avoided or so authorities can react to changing conditions

Real time monitoring also means municipalities can use predictive maintenance on the hole and the sewage system, saving money, being more efficient, and also more sustainable. And long-term data collection means planning for the future.

An end-to-end solution

The NID-CTHINGS.CO is an end-to-end solution. CTHINGS.CO’s dashboard is fully operational and can be integrated into any other system that either currently exists or that might exist in the future.

“Whatever you build, whatever you expand, you will have the same access,” explains Arnold Wierzejski. “That means that if there is an existing system that customers are used to using, we can expose the data gathered to those systems. And it also works the other way around: we can pull data to enrich the analytics and give more meaningful insights. So, we can broker the data if the customer wants, and we have all the best practices and standards you would expect.”

The data generates real time information as well as reports that give a longer-term analysis. These periodic reports can be on a timeline that suits the user, whether that’s weekly or monthly or some other iteration. This helps them understand that this sewage line carries the most water, that line has the most problems, and you need to either clean up all the ones around them or maybe build a new one. The reports help prioritize workflows, what is most urgently in need of attention, and also understand domino effects within the system

“All the statistics and all the areas of extensive challenge detection are gathered to help define the problems, because different systems and different manholes face different challenges,” says Arnold Wierzejski. “It’s important to understand that in order to address challenges effectively.

When the devices are installed and the data gathered and analyzed, whomever is in charge, such as the city planner or city manager, can do a risk analysis and understand the risk threshold and the safety threshold for different parameters, allowing them to protect their communities and make more effective use of resources.

Managing Connectivity & roaming

Managing their connectivity and SIMs is done with Cisco IoT Control Center (2CONTROL), which offers basic functions of SIM List with statuses, usage, etc.

“Some of the features that are most helpful to us include individual statistics and session data for each SIM card, which is beneficial for transmission pattern optimization and troubleshooting the connectivity problems,” says Arnold Wierzejski. “The engineering functions, such as Spotlight or Diagnose, easily help us find the root cause of connectivity problems. Moreover, we appreciate having the statuses of SIM cards and the possibility to change or suspend SIM cards that haven’t been used for a while. It really helps to keep the SIM card situation clear from the economic and engineering perspective.”

Roaming also plays a big part in the company’s product expansion across Europe, and having access to Tele2 IoT’s roaming agreements removes a lot of headaches.

“Engaging with local MNOs (Mobile Network Operators) is both time consuming and costly,” says Arnold Wierzejski. “Having an already proven connectivity supplier with a professionally maintained and extended list of roaming partners allows us to really expand our business to new countries in very short time frame, which means our Time2Market is very competitive.

Challenges

NID and CTHINGS.CO learned a lot during the pilot phase of their connected manhole covers.  As Arnold Wierzejski put it, devices do better if you send them into orbit than if you put them into a sewer, because it is a truly harsh environment where everything in the sewer eats up the electronics.

“Our promise to our customers is that the device will survive for about six years, so we had to make improvements and create hardware with materials that could truly withstand that harsh environment,”explains Arnold Wierzejski. “The result is an updated device and improved source code that now gets the job done.”

IoT & connectivity

The NID-CTHINGS.CO solution is the first of its kind in Europe and uses Tele2 SIM cards. LTE-M is the technology of choice because it is specifically designed for remote places in need of long-term battery life/low power consumption.

“Some municipalities are having a romance with Lora or other technologies that don’t offer the capabilities of LTE-M,” says Arnold Wierzejski. “I think that romance will be short-lived once they realize it doesn’t have a long-term relationship possibility.

“There are any number of cities around the world with ageing sewage systems that are difficult to reach and that are in dire need of better ways to maintaining them. Without Tele2 IoT’s connectivity and the real time data it allows us to collect, they’re just cooking spaghetti. The lines look like spaghetti and cities are just trying to update and upgrade the system by adding more lines, which doesn’t really fix the problem. Our solution changes that, allowing them to monitor multiple locations and address problems earlier, before they become overwhelming.”

Growing Portfolio

In parallel to installing connected manhole covers, NID and CTHINGS.CO have been developing a new solution for utilities operator Va Syd in southern Sweden, which involves remotely monitoring hydrants.

“We call this project Smart Hydrant Cap and with it we measure both usage and monitor security,” says Arnold Wierzejski. “Hydrants are critical infrastructure and it’s crucial they are monitored in order to prevent any tampering, such as with a terrorist attack. The solution we have developed is patented filed and it works with any kind of hydrant.”

Further expansion of their portfolio will include smart ground water level monitoring and their smart industrial radar solution has any number of other use cases, including septic tanks, rivers, sea sides, lakes, and both artificial and natural reservoirs.

“Interest in our solution continues to grow. We’ve also gotten enquiries to see if our solutions can be used to monitor grain in silos, oil in tanks – the use cases are amazing,” says Arnold Wierzejski. “There are other solutions on the market, but they don’t have what we have. Our competitor’s maximum range is 2-3 meters, ours is up to ten meters. Their device lifecycle expectancy is one year to 16 months – our lifecycle is six years.”

Putting in the work to develop superior range, performance, and operations while also being less demanding in terms of maintenance and easier to operate remotely is why the CTHINGS.CO and NID solutions are in demand – and why the company is preparing to scale. Currently, CTHINGS.CO has customers across mainland Europe, with roughly 1300 devices deployed in the field. The company expects this number grow exponentially in the coming months due to new established partnerships.

“We’re also excited to introduce our Smart ALARM solution, which is perfect for the B2C market, specifically for private retention tanks,” says Arnold Wierzejski. “With this solution, homeowners are able to monitor the level of liquid in their tank and receive alerts when it reaches a critical point. This feature helps prevent costly water damage and ensures that homeowners have consistent water supply.“

Another essential feature being developed is Overflow Structures, which will track the performance of pumping stations and the amount of liquid pumped through them. This feature will help operators optimize the performance of pumping stations and prevent overflow situations, which can be costly and dangerous. And there is also a Fire Hydrant monitoring feature in development that uses sensors to monitor the water flow and pressure in fire hydrants.

“Looking further into the future, we’re exploring the possibility of integrating weather forecasting into our software. By connecting weather forecast data to our water management solution, we can gain a wider perspective on how weather patterns impact water management. This feature will allow our users to make more informed decisions about water usage and management, ensuring that they are always prepared for any weather-related changes.”

At the end of the day, these new features will provide users with a more pleasant and efficient water management experience. With greater visibility and control, users can optimize performance, prevent costly damage, and ensure a safe and reliable supply of water. CTHINGS.CO’s goal is to continue improving and expanding our capabilities to make water management easier and more efficient for everyone.

If you would like to learn more about how IoT can enable your business, please get in touch.