In a blog post this week, Tech Analyst Michele Nati from IOTA Foundation, which offers the first open-source distributed ledger that is being built to power the future of the Internet of Things in industry, says in the past couple of years, IOTA has started to proactively participate in collaborative research and development efforts that are funded by the European Commission.
The main purpose has been twofold, to enable other parties to leverage the power of IOTA protocol in solving new problems and to identify and work on new requirements that would increase the long-term technology maturity and adoption. Earlier this year, after a competitive selection process, IOTA was awarded as one of the recipients of the Dig_it grant, a new collaborative project funded under the EU Horizon 2020 programme. The Dig_it project is a Research and Innovation Action (RIA) that brings together a consortium of 16 partners spread across Europe. Over a period of 48 months, the Dig_it consortium will leverage EUR 7 million of funding to digitise the mine supply chain (gold, copper, coal) and to create a more sustainable mining industry.
The project officially kicked off on May 5. Because of the travel restrictions and social distancing measures currently in place in Europe, this was a virtual kick-off meeting. The meeting was attended by all partners. The project is coordinated by ITAINNOVA, a research and development organisation based in Spain and includes a number of technology partners and exploitation/adoption partners, directly involved in the mining industry.
The appointed technology partners are: Brunel University, Core Innovation, Tau, Rotech technology, LIBRA AI, ICCS Research, EUROCORE, STRATAGEM, Libra, SINTEF Molab, SINTEF Helg. & Schneider Electric. IOTA is the only DLT provider. “This makes IOTA the only technology selected to create a trusted layer of data sharing for the mine supply chain of the future.”
The ambition of the Dig_it project is simple: collect data from the mining industry using an Industrial Internet of Things Platform and transform it into knowledge and actions aimed at improving the health and safety of the workers of this industry as well as the industry impact on the environment.
“The data leveraged will include data from people, workers, and new smart garments with embedded sensors. This data will be enriched with data from monitored machines, vehicles and tools involved in the mine operations, environment conditions and data from the ground, market data all combined to gain more knowledge from an industry so far very little digitised. The Dig_it project will not focus on the quantity of data but rather on the quality of it; trying to exploit the expertise of some of the adoption partners (Marini Marmi, Italy, Subterra Ingegneria, Spain, Tapojarvi and Hannukainen, Finland, Titania AS, Norway) directly involved in this industry, to only select, combine and use the most relevant data.”
Beyond improved efficiency (process optimisation, flexibility, cost savings), Dig_it aims to also tackle another major issue affecting the mining industry: the public opinion around the current poor reputation of the industry due to its impact on the environment and on the health of their workers.
To this purpose, part of the data collected by Dig_it will be presented to the public. In order to guarantee their origin, authenticity and integrity, the project will adopt Distributed Ledger Technologies. Shared data will prove to the public how the decisions taken by the Dig_it system allow the reduction of CO2 production, water consumption and waste production.
IOTA will be used as an infrastructure for different stakeholders to open up part of their data to the public. IOTA Streams will be used to manage and guarantee access to immutable data to specific beneficiaries, including public authorities, the general public etc. IOTA Unique Digital Identity will allow to verify data authenticity. The permissionless nature of the IOTA ledger will guarantee that no party will control the infrastructure, while its feeless nature will guarantee that such data is always free to access.
In order to develop the required interfaces towards IOTA and infrastructure integration, the IOTA Foundation will leverage EUR 155,000 public funding and will collaborate with ITAINNOVA. This will empower their developers to use IOTA with the result to further expand and grow the IOTA Ecosystem.
“In Dig_it, the development of new technology will start by learning from real stakeholders and their problems. After the initial development phase, the project will start testing solutions in real use cases. Deployment and test of new solutions will start from the last quarter of 2020. Use cases will be validated in five mines, located in Spain, Italy, Norway and Finland. All mines are underground, focus on different materials and provide unique challenges.”
“The IOTA Foundation is very proud to be part of the Dig_it project and consortium and excited to be able to learn from real-world problems and to help the mining industry to make a real and positive impact. In our mission to help foster positive and innovative use of the IOTA technology, the IOTA Foundation hopes to continue being involved in similar collaborative initiatives.”
