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SmartBrick

Monitoring of civil infrastructure

About SmartBrick

Smartbrick is an award-winning low-cost, high-tech, stick-and-play sensor device that can monitor large-scale structures to improve maintenance and safety.

Smartbrick is a new industrial IoT sensor designed for affordable and accurate monitoring of civil infrastructure (quay walls, foundations, buildings, etc.). Smartbrick monitors slope and other physical parameters with high accuracy and transmits this data wirelessly directly to an online control center. It is unique in its combination of accurate daily measurements, cost-effective and scalable manufacturing, integrated AI and ultra-low power consumption, creating a fully wireless, easy-to-install, battery-powered and cost-effective measurement system.

SmartBrick is a winning concept in the City of Amsterdam's innovation competition and nominated in the Co-Build Awards. The is currently being implemented to validate the concept before being rolled out to potentially 200 kilometers of quay walls in Amsterdam.

SmartBrick on Quay Walls

"Currently, bridges and quay walls in our city are monitored and supervised in a traditional way. This is done on only about 10% of the city while the remaining part is not without risk." Says Casper van der Peet, technical manager monitoring bridges and quay walls at the municipality of Amsterdam and project leader of the innovation competition in Amsterdam. "The SBIR was created to develop innovative techniques and methodologies that will enable us to monitor all of our bridges and quay walls in a cheaper and more efficient way. Smartbrick is one of the four winning and promising techniques from the SBIR that can hopefully help us move forward with this task."

Pricewinning concept

Forty-six parties applied to the SBIR competition in 2020. Eight parties advanced to the first phase. In July 2021, it was announced that Althen won the competition with three other parties, with Althen receiving the highest score. The solutions from the competition are now being further developed and tested in practice. The final phase of the SBIR project will run until July 2022, after which SmartBrick can be rolled out further in the municipality of Amsterdam.

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