Arnowa in Building Smart Cities
At a time when sustainability is a buzzword globally, one IIT-Kharagpur engineer, Om Dubey is helping businesses conserve energy through his startup, ARNOWA . It provides Internet of Things (IoT)-based automation solutions to local governments, buildings, homes and retail outlets and then drives intelligent controls centrally through AI, to automatically plug power leakages. When he started, he realised there was no hardware to get data from physical assets [like ACs, refrigerators]. So, he started hooking external hardware to the existing infrastructure to get data to deliver intelligent controls. Today, ARNOWA collects 80-100 million data points every day.
The technology works through sensor-based controls. For instance, the sensor detects the number of people in a retail store and automatically increases or decreases the cooling of the air conditioner. This results in at least 5-15 percent reduction in electricity consumption.
ARNOWA also makes use of AI and machine learning to avoid machine breakdowns. It predicts the health of physical assets through an algorithm that the team has developed. Once data comes in, it raises an alarm when a machine is about to breakdown.
ARNOWA provides a managed solution, a combination of both hardware and software, to its clients. The hardware required for every location includes sensors [bought from third parties], actuators [to control equipment] and a controller [pulls data from the sensor and uploads it to the cloud]. The software is a cloud, which is managed from a central location; the client can get access to energy consumption in every location in real time.
Presently, ARNOWA has around 20 customers, including City of Melville, City of Karratha, City of Waneroo, Town of Victoria Park to name a few. Some, like retail chains and universities, are engaged on a pilot basis. ARNOWA charges companies in two ways; first is the one-time installation charge for the hardware and then the annual subscription for the software. We have now deployed our technology in 20 locations in more than Perth and plan to add almost 100 sites every month.