iHLS Accelerator Startup: Disruption in IoT Command and Control
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עברית (Hebrew)
The market of the IoT connected devices is in the midst of a major revolution which has already altered every field, from domestic devices, industrial and medical systems, energy platforms, through smart city applications to police, military and emergency response systems. However, the command and control of the current variety of systems and devices require the use of countless separate platforms and specific know-how, that cause high costs, prolonged construction process, double infrastructure, and complex application of their command and control.
The entrepreneurs behind the Israeli startup uControl Wireless have identified this problem and developed a new generation of IoT systems command and control. This startup, which participates at the iHLS Security Accelerator, offers a solution based on an interoperability platform – the ability to connect devices and systems of various manufacturers for the purpose of command and control, beginning at the infrastructure level in the field. It is a ground-breaking wireless platform which supplies a holistic solution that connects any sensor or relay to any IoT application, using any communication method, avoiding double infrastructures and wiring and saving costs.
Roni Goldberg, CEO and one of the founders and an experienced IT entrepreneur says: “This technology is an agnostic solution, enabling each solution provider receive all the missing links of the “value chain”, in any IoT project as a service, without prior understanding in fields he doesn’t know, in a way that eliminates the exclusivity and advantage that the traditional solution providers used to have by virtue of the dedicated infrastructure they had developed for themselves.”
The technology developed by this startup is, in fact, a disruptive technology based on a new concept opposite to the market’s conventional one: Using distributed processing, i.e. attaching the end units (uConnect) to an independent processing and functioning for any sensor or group of sensors in order to decrease the amount of transmission by more than 80%, prolong battery life, minimize the risk to a complete system failure (no single point of failure) as result of a deficiency or attack. All these – while guaranteeing business continuity even when there is no connectivity to the internet/the regional ethernet hub (mission critical application).
The UConnect is a wireless end unit enabling of bi-directional radio communication, while the units do not transmit constantly but rather only when something that was pre-defined by the customer actually happens, instead of the legacy units that transmit continually.
The technology’s wide array of applications conforms to almost any sector – smart cities, energy efficiency, smart agriculture, security, mission-critical systems, pollution monitoring, etc. The platform enables the establishment of a local network and the automation of processes also in regions without reception (e.g. deserts, tunnels).
The major customers include mainly solution providers, manufacturers, integrators and entrepreneurs in the fields of smart city, smart buildings (Maccabi Healthcare), smart agriculture, etc., as well as connections with the leading defense industries, emergency and rescue organizations, police, prison authority, etc.
In the security and homeland security spheres, there are multiple command and control systems and various sensors of different manufacturers. Ron Gertner, head of the uContorl’s security division, a retired police commander with extensive experience in the police and the military, says their platform connects all the existing components into a sole management system. It can be connected to various sensors, e.g. fence detectors, proximity detectors, movement and cutting detectors, etc.
Furthermore, the platform expands the potential uses of the installation – gas, waterflood detection, distress buttons, and more. In fact, the same platform supplies a holistic solution for every need – security, irrigation, lighting, etc. It can turn a bomb shelter into a smart shelter: the system that can remotely open the shelter can also supply the solution for light, radon gas, waterflood, and other detectors.
The platform has been applied in mission-critical installations at the Maccabi Healthcare, from drug refrigerators temperature control to smoke, waterflood detectors, generators, etc., and managed to lower the project cost by 40% in comparison to the traditional solution.
A pilot project has been conducted with a local authority in the smart city field, regarding the detection of traffic lights’ faults and alerting the maintenance team, smart lighting, and more.
The entrepreneurs evaluate that the next five years would be the window of opportunity for a breakthrough in the field of IoT. The company’s vision, according to Roni Goldberg, is that their platform would eventually become part of each and every IoT project and a groundbreaking factor that will accelerate the IoT revolution.
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