QMIC and Polito reveal solution in ceremony in Torino

The event was attended by a high level delegation from Qatar that included senior executives from QMIC, Qatar University, and the Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF).

The event was also attended by the Rector of Polito and other senior local community leaders. In Nov. 2009, QMIC and Polito launched a global research and development initiative called 'Wireless Innovations for Water Conservation' to tackle water leakage and quality issues in water distribution networks.

Kahramaa in Qatar, the Regional Administration of Piedmont, SMAT, and CCAM in Italy supported the initiative as conservation of water resources is of interest globally. Subsequently a three-year project for the development of a new wireless-based solution to detect and monitor water leakage in underground distribution networks was launched late in 2009.

The project was funded by a grant from QNRF through its NPRP programme. Mr. Abdulla Al-Talib, Chairman of QMIC commented, "Today's announcement represents another example of the progress QMIC is making in tackling global challenges and creating locally-engineered solutions and intellectual assets. This is a good example whereby building local capacity and know-how and using it for tackling global problems clearly demonstrate the progress Qatar is making in transforming itself into a knowledge-based economy."

Rector of Polito, Professor Marco Gilli, said, "We are very pleased with the achievement announced today. This clearly demonstrates that a combination of a common vision, together with following a collaborative model for research and development can deliver significant results that neither party can achieve on its own."

Commenting on this event, the Executive Director (CEO) of QMIC Dr. Adnan Abu-Dayya, said, "After three-year of hard work by many colleagues, we are happy to announce the availability of an innovative prototype solution. This represents an end-to-end solution backed by unique intellectual property for wirelessly, effectively, and intelligently identifying the location and severity of the leakage in non-metalic water pipelines in underground distribution networks. Although a lot more work and investment are needed to translate this into a commercially-feasible solution, today's announcement represents a milestone as all key components and technologies are in place and working in the current prototype solution."

To address the challenges in realizing a cost-effective solution effectively and reliably, teams in Qatar and Italy worked collaboratively to execute on the many tasks of the project including: Designing and developing a mobile sensor that can smoothly flow in the water pipes with the necessary sensing and transmission capabilities Designing and developing a communication gateway and protocols for collecting the data wirelessly from the mobile sensor and passing it for analysis by a dedicated cloud-based server Designing and developing a cloud-based server that has the necessary intelligence to process the received raw data and translate it into visual information about location of any leakage and its severity Setting up a lab and field test facility to carry our necessary tests for the integrated system.

Dr Abdul Sattar Al-Taie, Executive Director of Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF), said, "I congratulate the project team for their outstanding achievements. This project is exemplary of the core objectives of QNRF, in using research to serve the Qatari, regional and global community needs as well as building the local capacity and skills necessary for realizing the Qatar National Research Strategy."

Dr. Daniele Trinchero, Head of iXem Labs in Polito said, "Our goals of creating a complete prototype system enabled by key technological achievements have been successfully achieved. This has been a direct result of close collaboration between many project research partners in Italy and Qatar and has been greatly facilitated by many collaborating companies in both countries."

Water distribution networks suffer huge losses all over the world. According to industry figures, the amount of water lost is typically in the range of 20% to 30% of production. In the case of some older systems, the percentage of water lost could be high as 50%. Hence, leakage remains the major source of inefficiency and it represents an acute problem not only in developing countries, but also in developed ones.

Therefore, any cost efficient and operationally effective solution that can identify water leakages can represent a crucial step towards saving and preserving scarce water resources.