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Competition winners pitch tech innovations to map London’s utilities underground

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Tech businesses in London had the chance to pitch their innovative solutions to an audience of organisations involved in providing infrastructure across the capital, including UK Power Networks, National Grid and Thames Water, at an event at City Hall on 7 June.

The innovators were winners of a challenge-led competition, run by the Mayor of London in partnership with BRE, aimed at bringing forward new forms of technology that could help the capital’s major infrastructure providers gain a shared understanding of the location and state of their underground assets.

The challenge was set by members of the Smart London Infrastructure Network, which is comprised of organisations delivering London’s infrastructure services, primarily the utilities responsible for water, energy, telecommunications and waste management.

The Network members were looking for digital technologies which would allow them to accurately identify the position of their own and others’ underground assets, including pipes, cables and joints, and/or determine their condition. This knowledge would support them in their ambition to improve safety, and to reduce operational downtime, cost and environmental impact, as well as disruption to London’s residents and businesses during repair or replacement operations.

The Network is one of two Smart London Innovation Networks, which were developed to support the Mayor of London’s work in ‘smart city’ innovation that addresses resource pressures whilst creating new economic and research opportunities.

Innovation Director at BRE, Cathy Crawley, said ‘“Through the competition process we have been able to identify a wide range of innovations which directly respond to the shared challenge of the infrastructure network members.  Innovators have then had the opportunity to pitch to larger organisations, accelerating the smart city market by helping them to understand demand-side needs and inform their future product development, research and marketing.’

In addition to pitches, the event provided attendees with the opportunity to meet a range of innovators as well as to network with other stakeholders in the infrastructure sector.

Winners of the Smart London Infrastructure Network competition call are:

AltoSUE (Altuity Solutions Ltd) a spatial database platform which provides accurate and up to date positional intelligence on underground assets.

InfraMarker by Bernsten (Bernsten International Inc) merging three technologies – RFID tags, mobile cloud computing and GIS – to provide an end to end system for marking, mapping and managing under- and above-ground assets.

Integrated multi sensor buried utility mapping solution (Cable Detection Ltd) real time data capture and mapping, with augmented reality visualisation.

Landmark Data Supplies and Virtual Survey Tool (Landmark Information Group Ltd) a solution which provides a single common standardised data hub.

Virtual Trial Hole (Murphy Surveys) an end-to-end service which gathers data using non-intrusive technologies and provides a 3D visualisation of underground assets.

Smart Tagging of Buried Assets (OXEMS) asset visualisation, anytime, anywhere, through a combination of OXEMS passive tags, simple and automatic data and photo collection, plus intelligent systems.

3D Utility Mapping (Skanska UK) collation of multiple data sets across users, providing an accurate 3D map of underground assets.

Integrated Total Quality Management (Subscan Technology Ltd) an integrated total quality management solution for detection, verification and mapping of underground utilities, providing a 3D BIM compliant output.

Technics Stream EM (Technics Group)  an end-to-end solution that provides a BIM ready 3D visualisation of high density data, collected through a vehicle-towed, multi-channel ground penetrating radar system.

Artificial Intelligence for visual analysis of scans and images (Tractable) a system for mapping assets and determining condition using Artificial Intelligence computer vision algorithms to analyse smartphone images, RF and GPR scans.

xihelm (xihelm) an artificial intelligence system which models 2D/3D visualisations of underground assets from acquired data.

For more information, please contact Jackie Sharp, Senior Sustainability Advisor at BRE, email [email protected]

NOTES TO EDITOR 

The Smart London Infrastructure Network is comprised of organisations delivering London’s infrastructure services, primarily the utilities responsible for water, energy, telecommunications and waste management. The Smart London Infrastructure Network supports the Mayor of London’s economic development policies and programmes, by helping to stimulate demand-led innovation and improve the environment through resource efficiency and social development.  It has been created to support the Mayor of London’s work in ‘smart city’ innovation that addresses resource pressures whilst creating new economic and research opportunities. The network is a commitment of the Smart London Plan and developed by the Smart London Board, the Mayor’s top line-up of experts – including leading academics, businesses and entrepreneurs – to advise on how London can put digital technology at the heart of making the capital an even better place to live, work and invest.

About BRE: We are a world leading building science centre and the authority on all aspects of the built environment. We generate new knowledge through research that is used to create products, tools and standards that drive positive change across the built environment. We enable our government and private sector clients to meet the environmental, social and economic challenges they face by delivering higher performing, better quality, safer, more secure and more sustainable products homes, buildings and communities. We are owned by the BRE Trust, a registered charity, which funds research and education that advances knowledge of the built environment.  We are committed to building a better world together. We are BRE. www.bre.co.uk