K-Businesscom - Large amounts of snow in the Northern Alps: Textile, intelligent snow load sensor can save lives
A textile snow load sensor is being used for the first time worldwide in Vorarlberg. The solution was developed by K-Businesscom together with the Grabher Group and the Smart Textiles Platform Austria. Forecasting the snow load on roofs is a major challenge, even for specialists. In future, the intelligent textile snow load sensor will also help emergency services, local authorities and private individuals to correctly assess the risk situation so that they can act in good time.
Vienna/Hohenems, January 21, 2019 - The current weather conditions in Austria are pushing roof structures to their limits due to the existing snow loads. This raises the question: how much snow can my roof withstand before it collapses? The intelligent, textile snow load sensor from Grabher provides the answer. The innovative fabric becomes an intelligent sensor thanks to the underlying technology solution from K-Businesscom. The sensor is only a few millimeters thick and is mounted directly on the roof surface. There it measures the weight of the snow and issues an alarm via a platform when the snow load limit is reached. In Eichenberg (Vorarlberg), the textile, digital snow load sensors are being tested for the first time under real conditions at 793 meters above sea level, with around 40 centimetres of snow. Prior to this, the fabric lifesaver was put through its paces in the laboratory. Development began three years ago. in 2018, the companies presented the sensor to the public for the first time. This promptly brought the first award: the textile snow load sensor was one of the winning projects in the Smart City Dornbirn competition as an outstanding digitalization project.
How does a fabric become smart?
The digitalization process to make a fabric smart is complex. "In the course of our daily work and our experience from over 130 digitalization workshops, we at K-Businesscom have found that most digitalization processes can be broken down into five components: sensor technology, networking, platform, artificial intelligence and analysis as well as application," explains Jochen Borenich, CEO of K-Businesscom. These components are also used in the development of the textile snow load sensor solution. It all starts with the sensor technology that records the data. In the case of snow load detection, this involves intelligent fabric that measures the weight of the snow. The snow load data is continuously collected and transferred to an IoT platform in K-Businesscom's own data centers in a highly secure manner and stored in encrypted form. In the next step, this data is then evaluated and analyzed. You could say that from this moment on, the material becomes intelligent. This is because data becomes information that can control and influence events and decisions. In the final step, the necessary information reaches the end user in real time via the platform. There, they can read the snow load data via an app. Only then does big data become smart data and thus understandable for the end user. If the values are increased, the textile, intelligent snow load sensor immediately sounds the alarm. This is how digital, smart solutions increase safety and make everyday life easier. "With our expertise as a leading digitalization expert, we implement end-to-end projects in all sectors, from industry and healthcare to smart offices," adds Borenich.
Everyday helpers in a snow emergency
"K-Businesscom's know-how in the field of transmission, data backup and analysis and our expertise in the entire textile sector complement each other perfectly here to make fabrics smart and develop them for intelligent use," says Günter Grabher, CEO of the Grabher Group. As interest in this solution is extremely high due to the current situation, it is currently being extensively tested in various scenarios and under real-life conditions. Experts from K-Businesscom, Grabher and the Smart Textiles platform are already planning additional functions: For example, the system will also provide data for assessing avalanche situations.
As a leading digitalization partner,K-Businesscom supports companies in increasing their business performance and developing new business models. K-Businesscom acts as a consultant, system supplier and service provider. With its comprehensive expertise in dealing with large amounts of data and security as well as a large number of successful use cases in numerous industries, K-Businesscom is the ideal companion for digital transformation. The extensive portfolio in Austria, Romania and the DACH region includes technology solutions for intelligent and, above all, secure ICT infrastructure, smart building, media and security technology as well as outsourcing services. K-Businesscom relies on vendor independence and partnerships with leading global providers such as HPE, Cisco and Microsoft as well as a broad network of partners from research and industry-specific solution providers - from start-ups to large corporations.
K-Businesscom has over 17,000 customers - e.g. Allianz, Erste Bank, ÖBB, OMV, ORF or Vodafone - and supports them locally and globally. Around 1,200 K-Businesscom employees generated revenue of around EUR 318 million in the 2017/18 financial year.
The Grabher Group, Company of the Year 2018, based in Vorarlberg, is home to nine companies that focus on the production of technical textiles, lightweight fiber composites, nano-plasma technology and smart textiles. With V-trion textile research GmbH, the group of companies also maintains its own research facility in these areas and is one of the world leaders in the research and development of textile sensors and actuators in particular. www.grabher-group.at