“Contador de Água Ultrassónico com Comunicação LoRa” was the winner of this year’s edition of the Future City Challenge and we talked to the team members, André Rodrigues, Carlos Estevão and Gheorghii Casian to learn more about their project. 

Can you tell us the name of your project and what it’s all about? 

The project in question is an ultrasonic water meter with LoRa communication. This consists of a water meter that uses ultrasonic pulses to measure the volume of water and flow in l/h that has passed through the pipe, and then sends these values ​​via LoRa to a dedicated IoT platform. 

The great advantage of this type of meter in relation to traditional mechanical turbine meters is precisely the greater long-term accuracy due to the absence of moving parts, allowing a more stable operation in the long term without the need to replace the meter. In the long term, the turbines of traditional meters can suffer wear that affects the measurements of water consumption, affecting both the final consumer and the water management company. This ultrasonic meter corrects these problems. 

The use of LoRa (which is free contrary to traditional mobile networks) and of the microcontroller opens many doors in terms of collecting data and transmitting it, eliminating the need for face-to-face data collection and introducing new features such as alarms or notifications related to possible water breakages. 

Another important matter is that currently the mechanical meters with communication available on the market only send the values ​​of the readings, not allowing the collection and management of other parameters such as the flow rate in l/h, as well as not having their own platform for data presentation. The prototype presented by us allows the reading of these same values ​​and presentation on a dedicated platform. 

What made you decide to participate in this year’s edition of Future City Challenge? 

As a group of three recent graduates in Electrical Engineering, we decided to put our knowledge to the test in this final phase of the course and try to build something that would contribute to improve the daily lives of the inhabitants of Coimbra. As it is a project that involves several components, from electronics, programming as well as theoretical knowledge, we found an added value both for us in terms of gathering knowledge and for the city of Coimbra to be able to take advantage of this type of product to improve its people’s quality of life and, more than that, to be able to better manage water consumption, given the drought situation we are experiencing.  

What were your expectations for your project? 

After winning the FCC 2022, we hope that with the support of the Coimbra City Council and all partners associated with this contest, we can continue to develop this project, improving the current prototype and thus eventually developing a final integrated solution ready for sale to the public with more functionalities than the current one. All of this at a competitive price in relation to the current market offers that are very limited in terms of functionalities. 

Can you describe a little bit of the process you had to go through from phase one until you became the winner? 

Building the prototype took some time. Initially, after choosing the idea, there was a phase of final adaptations of the project so that we could do something that could be done in a short period of time, followed by the entire architectural phase. 

Subsequently, after the arrival of the material, the final construction of the prototype began. This phase was the one that took the longest because it was necessary to implement the LoRa module to carry out the readings remotely. After these first two phases, it was only necessary to calibrate the water meter and carry out measurement tests. Winning the FCC competition was something that we thought was not achievable this year as at the time of submission we did not have a final integrated solution, only a prototype. However, we are very grateful for the trust placed in us and hope to repay in the long term. 

What does it mean for you and your team to be the winners of the FCC 2022? 

For us it is a great recognition, not only because our project won the competition, but also because it is a recognition of our work and effort over the last three years of the degree in Electrical Engineering. If we add that to the fact that we have won a competition of this magnitude and with the possibilities for future growth that it has, it gives us more will to continue to develop our project. 

We hope that this phase is just a starting point and that more victories are coming! 

We would also like to thank the entire organization for their support, which was essential to our success.