JessmFromEarth
commented
2 years ago Thank you for submitting this grant proposal we are very much looking forward to reviewing your proposal with our team.🎈
Open dekewright opened 2 years ago
JessmFromEarth
commented
2 years ago Thank you for submitting this grant proposal we are very much looking forward to reviewing your proposal with our team.🎈
Project: Oil and Gas Corrosion Monitoring Sensor
Elevator Pitch: There are over 2.6 million miles of Oil & Gas pipelines in the United States alone, and external corrosion is one of the leading factors of leaks. Currently, the only available IoT sensors for monitoring are cost-prohibitive ($2500+ & $15-$25 monthly data fees) for mass adoption. With Helium and LoRa technology, I am building the industry's first LoRa capable corrosion monitor for as little as $500 w/ a $5 monthly subscription per sensor. This should help lead to mass adoption of better & constant corrosion monitoring of Oil & Gas pipelines and assets to help avoid leaks, save lives, property, the environment, and billions of dollars worth of damages. This sensor is just the first step to automating corrosion control using the Helium network.
Total fiat/hnt ask: TBD, estimated $100,000
Name and Address: Emailed to DEWI
Team: Elite IoT Brandon "Deke" Wright - Founder Kevin King - Hardware Engineer TBD - Mobile Developer
Team projects: Deke Wright - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dekewright/ www.aimaps.com www.elitecorrosion.com
Kevin King - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-king-6891b412/ http://www.kevinkingengineering.com/ https://www.radiopopper.com/
Team Bio: Deke Wright: US Army veteran with over 15 years of experience in the corrosion industry. Founder of AIMaps, an asset management platform startup. AIMaps revolutionizes how corrosion assets and data are captured, visualized, and analyzed. Founder of Elite Corrosion, a technical services & construction company serving the Oil, Gas, and Utility corrosion industry. Always looking for a better and easier way to complete my job has led me down the path of creating new products to accomplish the task.
Kevin King: With over ten years of experience designing products, engineering consulting, launching products, manufacturing products, and solving new problems. My experience also includes Radio and Wireless RF Engineering, PCB Board Design, Altium Software, Design for Manufacture, Solidworks & Plastics Engineering, Sourcing Parts from Over Seas 7 Patents - Patent Writing and Patent Law Process. Invented RadioPopper in 2007. Working as a professional photographer at the time, I had the idea to create a radio bridge for the optical wireless communication system used by pro camera flashes. What began as a side project turned into a career. I never intended to produce them. I just planned to solder one up, tape it to the side of my flash, and go back to work as a photographer. The company was highly successful.
Project Details:
Using grant funds, Elite IoT will continue developing its current prototype sensor. We will look to add new members to the team to help speed up developing firmware, mobile app(for sensor setup in the field), securing a TagoIO account for beta testing with clients.
Overview: Oil & Gas companies utilize very few IoT devices for corrosion monitoring due to the prohibitive cost. With Cathodic Protection equipment (rectifiers) being the most monitored asset in the corrosion industry and Test Stations being the least monitored. For a quick breakdown, Rectifiers are used to impress DC through an anode ground bed with the current flowing through the soil to the pipeline(cathode). Free electrons flow from the anodes to the cathode via a metallic path causing the anodes to corrode and the cathode to be protected. Test Stations consist of wires exothermically welded to the pipeline and are typically placed along a pipeline every 1 mile or at large highway crossings or bodies of water. These Test Stations monitor Cathodic Protection levels and ensure corrosion is being mitigated. Currently, Oil & Gas companies are only required to read these test stations once a year.
By creating our new sensor using the Helium network, we can significantly bring the cost of these devices down and expand the Helium network by deploying gateways, either full hotspots or data-only hotspots along pipeline right-of-ways. By allowing Oil & Gas companies to monitor corrosion year-round, we can offer our clients the ability to help mitigate costly leaks and possibly save lives. Our initial goal is to target and deploy these sensors in metropolitan areas already covered by Helium. We also have two possible beta clients that will allow us to prove our remote deployment strategy using our own placed gateways.
Data collected by the sensor will then be sent to our client's TagoIO dashboards. SMS & email alerts will notify the client of potentially low cathodic protection levels along their pipelines. Unlike our competitors, our device is designed to be used with every type of corrosion monitoring asset used by oil and gas companies.
Hardware Development: The Elite IoT corrosion monitor sensor is being bootstrapped and has been under development for about three months. We have completed our first three PCB prototypes and are working on the firmware development and communication with the Helium Console. Once the prototypes are up and running, they will be configured and placed in the field for testing. With BlueTooth capabilities, we will also begin mapping out developing accessories that can bolster the usefulness of the sensor.
Software Development: We will then begin developing our mobile app for sensor configuration in the field. Using NFC to wake the device up and write our configuration commands depending on the type of asset it has been attached to monitor. We will develop to have a high-quality UI/UX for a seamless and easy sensor configuration.
Deployment: We will look at manufacturing around 100 sensors to install for a beta test with clients. This will allow us time to work out any kinks with TagoIO integration and find bugs within our hardware and software. After successful testing, we will begin bringing Elite IoT out of semi-stealth mode and looking for early adopters of our hardware, and begin mass manufacturing.
Future of Elite IoT Sensors: Our goal is to automate the corrosion industry for Oil & Gas and build out the Helium network in remote areas. Utilizing the most affordable network and using LoRa technology has allowed us to design the industry's most miniature sensor and provide the longest possible battery life. This first sensor is just the beginning of the innovations Elite IoT can bring to the Helium network and our industry.
All project dates will be re-evaluated at each milestone to account for project timeline changes. Currently manufacturing lead times, scheduling outreach during COVID peaks, etc. are expected to be factored in timeline decisions.