IWN representatives attend Smart Water Workshop
Intelligent Water Networks (IWN) representative David Bergmann has attended the AWMC Smart Water Workshop on behalf of the organisation.
Bergmann, who is the Program Lead for IWN’s Big Data and Analytics program, attended the workshop in Brisbane in lieu of Program Director Brett Millington – who was otherwise occupied.
In attendance were universities, water utilities, suppliers and providers. Dr. We Li from Sydney University kicked proceedings off by laying the foundation for our understanding of IoT before Professor Rachel Cardell-Oliver from the University of Western Australia shared their outcomes in developing leak quantification methods, anomaly detection at aquatic centres and development of a habit detection algorithm.
Further talks were delivered by Pablo Ledezma from the University of Queensland, who spoke about technology trends and how they drive IoT. In particular, it was noted that average sensor costs are reducing, the number of wireless connections are increasing along with processing power and cloud storage.
The afternoon session consisted of discussion, examples and roundtables. The role of IoT in the water industry was the main subject of talks, as was the priorities that the industry should focus on if the benefits of this type of technology are going to be captured.
Zhigou Yan from the Advanced Water Management Centre then wrapped up proceedings and summarised the main outcomes of the day. They were: the importance of sharing learnings and demonstrating value and benefits through case studies, be broad with benefits in order to further engage the public, address the gaps in wastewater and the need for low-cost on-line waste water quality sensors.
Talking about the day, Bergmann said: “The Workshop highlighted that IoT and Big Data is how we will keep up with changing customer expectations for service and information, and how it will help us run our businesses better. IWN’s programs are taking on these challenges too, such as by trialling data integration and visualisation tools for more informed and timely decision making.”
Further reading: Australia's IoT Opportunity: Driving Future Growth 2018