The project AUTOMON – Automated Monitoring of Water Resources – started off in January 2018. It was developed in Brazil in a partnership between INESC P&D Brazil, Federal University of Juíz de Fora and Hicon Engenharia LTDA.
The project is a result of the need to meet the requirements established in the Brazilian law (Joint Resolution ANA ANEEL nº 3/2010) in an automated and independent way, within the context of water resources.
Although it is allowed to use manual procedures to comply the activities defined in the protocols, this practice tends to gather considerable discrepancies in the generated database, detaching from reality. Three key challenges are described on the development of the vehicles in order to overcome these problems: the control and accuracy of positioning at the sub-meter level, the mitigation of the influence of the propulsion system on data reading and the portability assurance.
With the development of the vehicles, it will be possible to conduct the task with higher precision, reliability and lowest cost. Besides, there will be a comparison between the current and future methodologies. There will also be a detailed study of the impact of the measurement error, not only to companies, but also to all electrical sectors.
In addition to the improvements related to scientific development, this project will allow companies of the Brazilian electricity sector to reduce costs in the execution of these data collection samples.