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technology Developed in Donegal Helping provide clean drinking water Uganda It may be rolled out to other countries next year.
Since 2019, researchers at Atlantic University of Technology (ATU) in Letterkenny have been working on developing a smart sensor to detect failures in hand pumps used in boreholes in rural Uganda.
Now that the project is nearing completion, the team hopes it will be available in hundreds of locations around the world east africa country and has sparked interest from charities to install it in other countries.
Many communities in rural areas rely on hand pumps to pump clean water from boreholes. If these pumps failed, they would have to obtain drinking water from surface wells, which could be contaminated with high concentrations of E. coli.
Authorities often struggle to adequately monitor all boreholes in their area.
In September, research engineer Sennan Morris traveled to eastern Uganda’s Kumi region to install the latest prototype of the technology in 10 boreholes.
This small solar-powered device monitors water volume, the number of strokes of the pump handle, and its lateral movement.
“They’re constantly monitoring, but it only ‘wakes up’ once an hour, I guess you could say, to ‘phone home,'” he said.
The instrument sends information via Uganda’s cellular network to the cloud, where Donegal’s team can access it.
If anything goes wrong, they text a local mechanic and have them check the pump.
Mr Morris admitted the cross-continental nature of the alert system “sounds a bit interesting” but they hope to “hand it over” to their charity partner Fields of Life next year.
The researchers have been contacted about installing the devices in water pumps in Liberia, and he said the devices could be adapted anywhere where people use boreholes to get water.
Mr Morris said the project made him “very proud to see some of the development results in Letterkenny having a lasting impact on the good people of Uganda”.
The project, based in ATU’s Wireless Sensors and Applications Research (WiSER) laboratory, was launched after board member Ray Speer traveled to Uganda, where he became aware of problems with borehole pumps.
The project is a collaboration between the laboratory and a number of partners including consultancy Arup, semiconductor company Analog Devices and Kumi District Water Board, and is supported by Enterprise Ireland.
WiSER Labs specifically developed using internet things.
The Internet of Things refers to systems that connect everyday items to the cloud so that data can be collected and shared, much like how smart watches monitor footsteps and send information to mobile phones.
Other projects being developed at the ATU WiSER laboratory have applications closer to home, including a system to monitor the impact of seawater on Belmullet golf club, and a system to monitor water tanks at Achill Island aquarium, both in County Mayo.