Pioneering Access to the Subsea Environment
Hydromea makes the subsea world more autonomous, affordable and accessible with miniaturized robotics and wireless communication technologies.
Understanding the last frontier
Getting high resolution and timely data underwater still remains a challenge today largely because satellites cannot penetrate the surface of water, making water not accessible to remote monitoring like air. While some progress has been made with surface vehicles, current technologies for measurement and collection of data underwater are largely inefficient, bulky and costly.
This significantly limits our understanding of the ocean and estuary environments, its spatial and temporal changes are hard to detect and analyze with spot measurements or single vehicles. Whether it’s a dredging company wanting to know where and how much of the sediment travels during the delta works, or a public water utility worrying how the rainfall may affect drinking water quality in a lake, Big Data provides visibility previously not imaginable.
After over 10 years of research and development, we believe we cracked the rich data collection problem underwater and our technology leads the way in the affordable Big Data entry under the water surface. Big Data, as on surface, will provide companies and institutions working underwater with the knowledge, tools and solutions that will lead to more informed decisions and make their work safer, cost effective and simply a success.
Technology Principles
Portable
A big part of Hydromea’s expertise and R&D focus is aimed at miniaturization of the equipment used underwater. Our technologies are unique in the sophistication and versatility that go into small-sized products. We believe that by bringing down the weight, size and power demand of a device, it suddenly opens up opportunities that before one could only imagine.
Insightful
Our proprietary acoustic technology developed in-house and state-of-the-art sensors that can be fitted as required on our drones provide for the 10-100x more data points that was possible ever before in a time and at a cost that presents a new paradigm shift in data collection underwater. A rich data set collected at a fraction of the time leads to valuable insights that will protect more lives and improve more workstreams.
Affordable
It is not only about the cost per data point that is revolutionary with Hydromea technology. It is not just the time savings that we will certainly provide to the users of our drones and modems. What we think counts more than anything else when it comes to resource allocation is the visibility that the quality of our data provides. The visibility that allows for conclusive and well informed decisions that now worth every penny.
Industries
The high-resolution and real-time data obtained simultaneously across a defined volume of water brings unparalleled value to numerous industries – from mapping the extent of an oil spill or turbidity profiles during delta works and port construction to nitrate plume detection, closed space surveys and management of bath and potable water
Water column
Surveying & mapping
Whether it’s mapping the coastal waters affected by climatic events or surveying the outflows from desalination plants, nitrate plumes off the agricultural fields, pollution or spills as a result of human activity, professionals and governments will benefit from spatial and temporal data in water at an unprecedented speed, with high resolution 3D visuals and precise accuracy
Oil & Gas
Wind Energy
Hydromea technology provides an excellent tool for emergency response in case of an accident due to its size, cost and highly modular design. Deploying the Vertex swarm for UOD or seismic studies will drastically cut time to results at a competitive cost. Hydromea deep-water wireless modem provides faster access to data loggers on the ocean floor while drawing very little power, opening new possibilities for a connected ocean
Dredging
Port & Delta Management
High resolution data in real time across any predefined area simultaneously gives dredging companies insights in the level and direction of turbidity outflows, leading to a more fine-tuned dredging, saving time, resources and having better control over the impact on the environment. Port authorities use Hydromea technology to survey its waters profiting from affordable and portable Vertex swarm that can quickly map out the extent and nature of the pollutants
Scientific Exploration
& Measurements
Hydromea technology serves as an excellent tool for rapid and high-definition assessment of ocean and estuary environments and provides unprecedented level of detail with mapping of both spatial and temporal changes. This provides the scientific community with insights and knowledge necessary for successful project outcomes
Potable & Bath
Water
The health of the communities heavily relies on clean water access. Hydromea works together with NGOs, governments and potable water companies to deliver data that can be used for forecasting modeling and prevention of pollution incidents and emergencies. Hydromea’s technology will be an integral part of the programme to achieve UN Sustainable Development Goals 6 & 14
Closed Water
Spaces
Getting an insight into a nuclear waste water pool, a water pipeline or a contaminated flooded mine isn’t easy. Hydromea not only makes it accessible, it provides a rich set of precise data fast with its sensors and/or fitted camera. In the development of Vertex drones, Hydromea invented unique thruster technology that now allows the drones to move in any direction and even hover over one spot, which has not been achieved before
About
Founded in December 2014, Hydromea SA is a deeptech start-up from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, with the goal to bring the latest advanced technology from microengineering and robotics to the environmental water quality market. The Hydromea technology is the result of over 10 years of experience gained through research of the founders in underwater communication, localization, propulsion and distributed systems. By leveraging automation, data management and multi-robot systems with AI, Hydromea aims to provide high-resolution in-situ data (which to date cannot be obtained by other means), cost-effectively and fast.
Team
Dr Felix Schill
Felix is an expert in real-time systems, ad-hoc communication networks, aerial and underwater robotics, and also has extensive experience in designing and building electronics, embedded systems, rapid manufacturing/3D printing, composite manufacturing and mechanical design.
Igor Martin
Igor spent over 15 years in various commercial roles in DuPont de Nemours with the focus on municipal and industrial water sanitation & disinfection in the food sector. Over the last 5 years prior to joining Hydromea, he ran a $40mln global biocides business, responsible for its P&L and all aspects of the company (Strategy, M&A, R&D, Sales, Marketing, Regulatory and Operations).
Dr Alexander Bahr
Alexander is an expert in the cooperation and navigation of large groups of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV), he has hands on experience with the design, testing and deployment of underwater sensing equipment.
Anwar Quraishi
Anwar is currently pursuing a PhD in robotics at EPFL working in collaboration with Hydromea. His work aims at developing methods and algorithms for cooperative operation of a team of AUVs for tasks such as limnological surveying. His research interests include mobile robotics, navigation and distributed systems. Prior to starting his PhD, he received a master’s degree in Robotics from EPFL.
Advisors
Gleb Chuvpilo
Managing Partner at Rewired, a $100M Venture Capital firm investing in AI & Robotics, Gleb is an investor in Artificial Intelligence & Robotics with a Master’s degree from the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab and an MBA in Finance and Strategic Management from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Before becoming a venture capitalist, Gleb managed AI-driven quantitative trading portfolios at Goldman Sachs ($10 billion AUM) and Clarium (Peter Thiel’s $6 billion global macro fund), built AI algorithms at Palantir Technologies (an In-Q-Tel backed Silicon Valley startup), and co-founded several technology startups, including Authy (Y Combinator class 2012, acquired by Twilio), Ride (with Uber co-founder Oscar Salazar, funded by TPG and Bono, acquired by Enterprise Holdings), and Pager (also with Oscar Salazar, funded by New Enterprise Associates and Ashton Kutcher). Gleb is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and a member of the New York Society of Security Analysts (NYSSA) and the Wharton Private Equity & Venture Capital Association. Gleb is also an Energy Risk Professional (ERP), as well as a graduate of the MIT Sloan Financial Technology program and the Reforge Growth Series with Andrew Chen.
Daniel Brandenburger
Independent industrial consultant and Innosuisse Startup Coach Daniel is an independent industrial consultant with more than 30 years experience in creating, restructuring and managing sales, engineering and production operations for large European enterprises in the APAC region, especially China. He faced all possible challenges in fast developing and extremely competitive environments, successfully created distribution networks, developed and implemented multi-sites organizations, with ambitious visions and strategies insuring outstanding growth results. He holds a Master in Mechanical Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland, a postgraduate from Tsinghua University, China in machine engineering and an Executive Development degree from IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland. He is fluent in French, German, English and Chinese. He successfully created or restructured more than 15 influential companies in many different industries. Today he shares these experiences with different companies from startups to MNC, supporting their growth and preparing them to face all industrial and operational challenges. He is a CTI startup Coach for the Swiss Commission for Technology and Innovation as well as member of the Business Angels of Switzerland.
Prof. Alfred Johny Wüest
Professor, head of Physics of Aquatic Systems Laboratory (Margaretha Kamprad Chair), ENAC, EPFL Lausanne, Switzerland, also a member of the EAWAG (Swiss federal water research institute) directorate. His research focuses on small-scale processes such as turbulent mixing, boundary layer fluxes and double-diffusion. The applied research and expert services were mostly related to lake management (nutrients, turbidity, heat use and hydropower). Within this research portfolio, Wüest has published 130 peer-reviewed articles and 22 book articles. The goal of the larger and interdisciplinary projects was usually to assess the anthropogenic effects on physical and biogeochemical effects in stratified lakes and reservoirs with an applied research component. But Wüest likes especially the possibilities of investigations of very special aquatic systems as Lake Ohrid, Lake Baikal and Lake Kivu.
John Mulholland
John Mulholland brings 20 years of experience in the development of advanced subsea sensor systems and infrastructure, including life extension of high value strategic assets, within both Oil & Gas and Naval research. John has been a founding team member for projects which defined the next generation infrastructure for leading subsea production equipment suppliers, as well as developing a business around diverse projects for robotics systems including opportunities within offshore, aquaculture, manufacturing and medical sectors. He is part of the EU AI Alliance, and leads the security and systems program for a Norwegian project building up competency in Autonomous systems. John is currently an Assistant Professor of Systems Engineering at the faculty of Technology and Maritime Sciences at the University of Southeatern Norway, specialising within systems supportability and autonomy.