The Arantec Engineering company from Valle de Aran, composed of a group of engineers, programmers, and interface designers specialized in wireless sensor networks (WSN) for Smart Cities, under the Smarty Planet brand of cloud solutions for environmental measurement and control, and Internet of Things (IoT), has been honored with the Innovation Challenge Award of the ANYWHERE Project, which was granted during the 5th General Assembly of the ANYWHERE working group held in Spiez, Switzerland, from March 6th to 10th.
The ANYWHERE Project organizes an Innovation Challenge to select the best innovative idea to complement ANYWHERE’s products and services. The award consists of an invitation to become a new partner of the ANYWHERE consortium and receive a specific budget of €50,000 to cover the associated costs of this implementation.
The ANYWHERE Project
The project “EnhANcing EmergencY Management and Response to Extreme WeatHER and climate Events” (ANYWHERE) is funded by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (EC-HORIZON2020-PR700099-ANYWHERE) and started in June 2016.
The objective of the project is to integrate various advanced algorithms for extreme weather prediction and their direct impacts into an accessible platform that can be used at different levels, assisting all types of administrations such as Civil Protection, general and regional administrations, as well as the general population. It is designed to help protect against weather-related damages and, ultimately, save lives.
The project has partners from 12 countries and is coordinated by the Applied Research Center in Hydrometeorology at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, which includes 6 companies, 12 operational authorities, and 13 research and development partners, ensuring the capacity and high standards of the project’s results, as well as their application and acceptance in the market.
Notable partners in this European project include Airbus (http://www.airbus.com/), the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF-https://www.ecmwf.int/), the Finnish Meteorological Institute (http://en.ilmatieteenlaitos.fi/), the Catalan Water Agency (http://aca-web.gencat.cat/), and universities.
Within the ANYWHERE project (http://anywhere-h2020.eu/), the Innovation Challenge initiative has been developed to seek innovative ideas to improve administration and response during emergencies, helping to complement ANYWHERE’s products and services. These ideas will be based on the following concepts:
Integration or use of ANYWHERE products in an innovative solution with strong commercial application and preferably with a high social impact benefit. The Proposed Solutions may include a plan for commercial exploitation in a relevant market, and specific requests or interested clients will be preferred.
Innovative tools, algorithms, or processes that can be integrated into the ANYWHERE platform and can improve it as a whole. Proposals can be exclusively technological (IT) or a broader solution that also includes operational processes.
ANYWHERE 2020 Innovation Challenge
De the more than 20 innovative ideas received from institutions and companies, two finalist companies have been selected: GeoAdaptive and Arantec Engineering, which have submitted their candidacy to be part of the ANYWHERE project at the “5th General Assembly meeting” held from March 6th to 10th in Spiez, Switzerland.
GeoAdaptive (http://geoadaptive.com/) is a planning and development strategy company specializing in the use of geospatial technologies to solve complex economic, environmental, and social problems in various territories, scales, and industries. They implement and integrate advanced techniques in spatial economics, risk analysis, socio-ecological modeling, and place-based design to create robust strategies for clients worldwide, reducing their risks and maximizing opportunities for sustainable and inclusive growth.
Among their solutions related to the ANYWHERE project, they focus on risk analysis and climate change modeling, risk probabilities in cities, and mainstreaming strategies for resilience and disaster risk reduction (DRR).
Arantec-Smarty Planet (www.smartyplanet.com) is a company that provides cloud-based solutions for measuring and controlling environmental phenomena. They design, develop, and produce their own software and hardware to offer clients complete and reliable solutions for the Internet of Things (IoT). In essence, they provide integrated, reliable, compatible, cost-effective, easy-to-implement, and user-friendly solutions.
Arantec Engineering commercializes the comprehensive Smarty Planet monitoring and remote control solutions designed for various sectors, such as hydraulic works, roads, smart cities, agriculture, airports, and railways.
Smarty Planet sensor stations are monitoring and remote control solutions specifically designed for river courses and flows (Smarty River), snow monitoring (Smarty Snow), water quantity and quality (Smarty Water), weather stations (Smarty Meteo), forest fire control (Smarty Forest), acoustic and environmental quality (Smarty Sound), and air quality (Smarty Air).
During the presentation by Eisharc Jaquet, CEO of Arantec Engineering, and Mario Losáñez, Business Development Director, they showcased the necessary tools for integrating ANYWHERE products with the Smarty Planet service to propose the development of a tool capable of providing Smarty Anywhere services to end customers.
On March 9th, the Consortium decided that the winner of the most innovative idea to improve the platform, and who will now be a new partner, would implement their selected idea or tool in the ANYWHERE platform, namely Arantec-Smarty Planet.
Regarding Smarty Planet solutions
Smarty River. Early Warning System (EWS) for floods and hydrological monitoring is a solution that allows for easy and real-time recording, visualization, management of alarms, and data sharing regarding the monitoring and status of rivers and reservoirs.
Smarty Snow. System for the prevention and control of snow avalanches and winter road management. This technology helps control the risk of snow avalanches in mountainous areas, preventing damage to infrastructure and ski resorts.
Smarty Water. Sensor station for the control and monitoring of water quantity and quality. Through flow meters or counters, it provides control over the flow rates in water supply and sanitation networks, as well as continuous and unattended monitoring of water quality parameters such as temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, conductivity, ammonia, nitrates, etc.
Smarty Meteo. Compact scientific-grade weather stations for Smart Cities. A self-sufficient sensory solution designed specifically for measuring environmental parameters and providing added value to the meteorological services of cities through wireless environmental sensors for smartphones.
Smarty Sound. Sound level meters for monitoring and control of environmental noise. Specifically designed for remote measurement of decibels (dB(A)) in outdoor streets, areas, and industrial facilities to assess noise pollution.
Smarty Air. Sensor station for air quality control, allowing for recording, visualization, management of alarms, and data sharing regarding the state of air quality and levels of atmospheric pollution.
Arantec Engineering carries out projects in Spain, Europe, and South America, and implements Smarty Planet solutions in collaboration with various partners in Portugal, Andorra, Estonia, France, Malta, Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, and Brazil.
