Public Funding for Rinicom Limited

Rinicom Limited, a leading UK SME specialised in state-of-the-art communication and detection systems, will develop an innovative communications platform enabling wider IoT and robotics adoption in challenging remote and underground infrastructure facilities and tunnels such as mines and transport systems, improving operational efficiency and safety, to drive increased productivity and sustainability. By harnessing an innovative digital radio for leaky cable applications and a proprietary Software Defined Radio (SDR) acting as a mesh network to provide full coverage which is not feasible with existing state-of-the-art, the proposed system will enable a number of new services. More specifically, it will support multiple software and hardware device applications where signals can be sent and received in real-time between IoT-devices and a centralised system, offering full situational awareness for mining/transport operators above and below ground. In addition, the proposed communication system will enable wider use of ground robots and Artificial Intelligence algorithms aiming to improve both the operations and predictive maintenance of the mines. The innovative solution will be distinct in its ability to provide high-bandwidth, low-latency continuous communication over extended distances in underground mines --- a significant improvement over existing technologies such as low bandwidth analogue leaky cable and point based Wi-Fi-hotspots with limited 50m range, both suffering high latency and unable to provide mine- or tunnel-wide coverage. This positions Rinicom's technology as a critical enabler for the adoption of more advanced automation and safety monitoring systems in the mining and transport sectors. The project focuses on prototype development and testing, building on the team's extensive industry knowledge and expertise, with access to a decommissioned mine for testing and post project pilot operations, plus an established network of distributors, equipment suppliers and operators across the UK and globally, to ensure the successful development and deployment of this innovation.

The goal of ESCORT project is to bring prominent advances in IoT, Wearables, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning (ML) to facilitate enhanced patient treatment services for the enrichment of patient experience and European health and care service resilience. The proposed innovations to be carried out in the project will assist int eh development of ethics-by-design policy intervention based on the evidence collected and analysed from the pilot studies. Spanning across 36 months, the ESCORT project brings together the experiences of leading healthcare service providers from five (5) European (Greece, Italy, Belgium, Sweden, Ireland) and one (1) associated member (Israel) states specialising in emergency medicine and offering regular health and care service providers across six (6) countries (AUTH, UCSC, VUB, KI, NH, MDA). The development of digital services will be designed in consultation with the stakeholders including patients, patient advocacy groups, health and care service professionals, health and care providers. The development of technology will be supported by research experts (UTH), complementing the expertise of SMEs (RINI, MKM, COSI, MDS). The overall integration of the proposed tools and services will be achieved by INTRA. The origins of ESCORT conceptualisation can be traced back to the supplier network creation within NO-FEAR (CSA) project in which validation of individual tools catering the demands of urgent and emergency medicine has been carried out. Building on the success of the NO-FEAR project, the workplan of ESCORT has been designed to enable integration of core technologies to develop digital services addressing patient needs and requirements. To achieve this project, the ESCORT consortium has identified three (3) scenarios which represents the pre-, and post- clinical patient care and the needs of victims requiring support for urgent and emergency medical care. All the scenarios will be validated across six (6) countries.

The world is filling up with wireless devices and is expected to have over 50 billion connected devices within in the coming decade. Some of such devices are mobile phones and handsets, others will be connected to machines that perform critical functions ranging from remote surgical systems to self-driving cars, security drones and highly connected accurate computing and communication systems. For many of these, accurate, distributed, scalable and synchronised electronic timing and time stamps are crucial to guarantee correct and safe operation by enabling accurate derivation of location, below 1 metre. The accuracy required would be less than a billionth of a second (sub-nanosecond) needed, for example, for accurate lane changing in autonomous vehicles, for user location in augmented reality and for precise co-ordination of a swarm of drones for monitoring and security missions. While satellite-based Global Positioning System (GPS) and its equivalents are currently used to enable sub-meter positioning/sub-nanosecond timing accuracy, they rely on good visibility of the sky above, which is difficult, even impossible underground, within buildings or in urban canyons, between high rise buildings. Furthermore, GPS satellites are vulnerable to being disabled by cyberattacks or solar flares, as well as destruction by hostile projectiles; an estimated cost of $1billion/day if GPS is disabled. Our focus is the design and implementation of systems satisfying such demanding and challenging requirements. These require innovation and the combination of optical fibre, electronics and wireless techniques. Limitations of existing systems and the absolute necessity of time synchronisation and positioning for our future technology driven economy, an alternative based sub-nanosecond time synchronisation and sub-meter positioning is needed. This project brings UCL innovators and Rinicom designers and system integrators to produce new design concept meeting the challenges described. We have successfully experimented with methods to generate highly accurate timing signals (sub-nanosecond accurate) using electronic and optical methods. These signals will be optical signals and we plan to distribute them by making use of already deployed fibre networks and cables. As optical cables are never far from wireless base stations, the accurate timing signals will be coupled to wireless systems and spread to wireless devices over the air. The proposed designs include methods to use data packets to store, track and compensate for the varying signal propagation delay due to environmental (e.g. temperature) changes. We plan to show experimentally the feasibility of this method and verify the positioning accuracy using drones.

The MARINET - Mesh Networking for the Maritime Industry project aims to develop a universal wireless mesh network to create a step-change in maritime connectivity and communications. A low cost, "plug-and-play" Internet-of-Things (IoT) platform will be developed to support multiple ship systems, where signals can be sent and received between IoT devices and a centralised system, offering full situational awareness onboard and around the vessel. Key IoT-enabled applications include asset positioning and maintenance, personnel tracking and safety, and mesh-networking between ships for safer and more efficient operations. MARINET will leverage the expertise and capabilities of Rinicom Limited and System Loco Limited in developing state-of-the-art telecommunications and IoT-solutions for tracking, remote monitoring, logistics, supply chain and security applications. A prototype system will be developed alongside Edda Supply Ships (UK) Limited, as a vessel operator, to perform system trials and ensure the solution meets industry requirements. The partners will exploit results through an established network of ship owners and fleet operators, seeking IoT solutions for retrofitting of existing vessels and new builds, in an effort to reduce high operational costs. Outcomes can be rapidly scaled for commercialisation, creating a significant business opportunity through the sale of network infrastructure and application specific IoT devices and services enabled by the platform.

The development, implementation, and demonstration of a mesh based novel data link system for professional Unmanned Aerial Vehicles used by First Responders to support search and rescue missions.

Rinicom and System Loco propose to develop a new artificial intelligence software design to improve the detection range and processing capability of optical drone detection with new, higher-resolution optical cameras.

OSL and Rinicom are collaborating on a project to develop a new, safe counter-measure system to protect airports against illegal drones that pose a threat to the airport security.

With global energy demand set to increase by 40% by 2030 and climate change issues mandating a reduction in non-renewable energy sources, wind energy has become the leading candidate for energy production. Offshore wind energy production offers the potential for wide-scale energy production due to its advantages over its onshore counterpart including less visual pollution, less competition with agricultural operations, more/stronger consistent winds. However, offshore wind generation suffers from an increased Levelized Cost Of Electricity due to a range of factors; increased operational, installation/maintenance costs, significant safety issues and limited operating conditions. A key focus of the UK government is to reduce the costs associated with offshore energy production mainly associated with operating in a marine environment, which includes the need for a recognised dynamic positioning solution for monitoring two objects in motion efficiently and safely. Rinicom aims to further develop and validate their Six-Axis Monitoring (SAM) technology in a relevant environment using existing video analytics and machine vision algorithms to a novel offshore wind use-case using off the shelf components to ensure ease of integration and a cost-effective solution. This project will also leverage the expertise of Edda Supply Ships (a subsidiary of Østensjø Rederi) to test and validate the SAM technology. This technology offers a step-change with respect to marine-based dynamic positioning and monitoring systems, with improved accuracy, low latency, lower costs and ease of retrofitting and integration into existing vessel systems, enabling the reduction of costs associated with operational and maintenance aspects of offshore wind energy generation, benefitting society as a whole. With market need validated (through discussions with end-users including Edda Supply Ships) and building upon previous proof of concept in-house laboratory studies that presented promising accuracy results (acceleration/velocity accuracy: <99%, displacement accuracy: 5cm at 50m), this project will further develop the SAM technology and validate a prototype in a relevant environment. This novel technology has the potential to completely revolutionise the way in which installations and maintenance is undertaken on offshore energy infrastructure in order to reduce the cost of operation, increase number of operational days and increase the safety of operating heavy machinery in challenging conditions. This innovative solution has the potential to be exploited across the globe in a range key sectors (including oil and gas, passenger ferries, etc.) and will reduce the overall Localised Cost of Electricity for offshore wind energy.

"Food security concerns resulting from incurable bacterial blight is one of the most critical environmental and social issues faced globally. 10% of global crop production is lost to disease costing $220 billion annually. The diversity of crop diseases continues to expand, and new strains are constantly evolving. A study has suggested the loss of major crops to bacterial blight amount to enough to feed nearly 9% of the global population, with these figures set to increase further with the prevalence of climate change and continued heavy metal use on agricultural soil. Despite the urgency and scale of the problem, technological advancements to identify, treat and prevent bacterial blight infection in crops is ineffective, with detection largely reliant on manual processes, therefore timely, unproductive with state-of-the-art imaging technologies not widely adopted due to their cost-ineffectiveness and complicated output. Additionally, there are no current chemical or biological treatments that can cure bacterial infection, they simply slow the spread of the disease. Full plant removal is essential to halt the bacterial spread but is very costly. This collaboration of Folium, Rinicom and the John Innes Centre seeks to overcome limitations of current solutions to deliver the first complete solution to both detect and treat Xanthomonas bacterial blight by developing a dual-purpose drone and novel Guided Biotic treatment to be used as a joint solution. This drone can attach interchangeable payloads with a sensor system and delivery system specifically designed during this project work. This approach will offer: Advanced AI driven image analysis to identify Xanthomonas infection Precise location GPS of infection Associated infected area coordinates Specific spot spray of Guided Biotics (employing delivery system) Treatment/protection of diseased plant only by selected removal of Xanthomonas infections Modulation of signalling pathways to abolish bacterial pathogenicity Enhanced product lifetime due to reduced selective pressure to develop resistance Reduced crop waste Increased crop production system efficiency Improved soil and air quality. With support through Innovate UK, a 24-month programme of research is required to deliver an optimised prototype demonstrated in a crop production system. If successful, this solution has the potential to truly revolutionise the future of food security with global exploitation potential (capable of preventing 1.6 million tonnes of waste- cumulative by YR5). The project will deliver significant export led growth for Folium and Rinicom, a substantial ROI, increased employment and further opportunity for R&D investment."

Awaiting Public Project Summary

The SkyBridge project brings together unique & innovative organisations of SME's, Universities & an automotive OEM to form a 5G Innovation Value Chain in a collaborative development of a network connectivity solution for passenger journeys & smart cities. This solution leverages a defence sector technology from Horsebridge which allows the user to benefit from the secure, aggregated bandwidth from up to 4 mobile network operators & tailors it specifically for smart infrastructure & connected transport needs. In particular SkyBridge will be future-proofed to ensure compatibility with emerging 5G standards across secure, massive & critical IoT platforms. This novel connectivity solution allows improved & enhanced services to be provided to consumers to enrich their passenger experience & enables the provision of better services, greater flexibility with wider economic, social & environmental benefits. SkyBridge supports the UK’s drive to develop capability & technologies which will position it at the forefront of the 5G Smart & Secure Living environment.

Rinicom's VIDEO-MESH II proposes to develop a novel surveillance system, integrating HD dual optical-thermal cameras and a robust mesh communications system, to enable the distribution of multiple high-quality live video streams to authorised devices, real-time wireless broadband transmission and seamless access to video meta data and information exchange. VIDEO-MESH Development of Prototype (VIDEO-MESH II) will design and implement the new dual-cam system, as it provides direct device-to-device broadband communications and adds the network access point functionality, resulting in the ability to rapidly and effectively extend the network reach without requiring additional investments or modifications to the existing physical infrastructure. VIDEO-MESH II will deliver a technologically-innovative prototype that validates the system's network performance and scalability towards the dynamic connection of multiple information producers (e.g., dual-cam systems, third-party camera systems, remotely operated systems) and consumers (e.g., mobile stations, unmanned vehicles). Rinicom's VIDEO-MESH will be the FIRST EVER HD optical and thermal camera supporting wireless mesh broadband networking, at a highly competitive price. It innovatively combines the added value of dual HD cameras in surveillance with Rinicom's proprietary mesh networking, COFDM robust waveform and smart video analytics to create a truly gamechanging surveillance asset, supporting a seamless network of (mesh-compatible) interconnected systems that sustain high-throughput data sharing exchange, automatic detection and tracking and communications relay to third systems. VIDEO-MESH II cutting-edge innovation will impact the surveillance market, introducing a unique, high performing, adaptive, secure and cost-effective dual-cam mesh networking surveillance system that is beyond the current market state-of-the-art and delivers improved protection of citizens, critical infrastructures and border control.

Awaiting Public Project Summary

RINICOM's VIDEO-MESH proposes to develop a novel surveillance system, integrating HD dual optical-thermal cameras and a robust mesh communications system, to enable the distribution of multiple high-quality live video streams to authorised devices, real-time wireless broadband transmission and seamless access to video meta data and information exchange. VIDEO-MESH proof-of concept (PoC) will assess the technical feasibility of the new dualcam system, as it provides direct device-to-device broadband communications and adds the network access point functionality, resulting in the ability to rapidly and effectively extend the network reach without requiring additional investments or modifications to the existing physical infrastructure. VIDEO-MESH PoC shall validate the system's network performance and scalability towards the dynamic connection of multiple information producers (e.g., dualcam systems, third-party camera systems, remotely operated systems) and consumers (e.g., mobile stations, unmanned vehicles). Rinicom's VIDEO-MESH Duplex PTZ will be the FIRST EVER HD optical and thermal camera supporting wireless mesh broadband networking, at a highly competitive price. It innovatively combines the added value of dual HD cameras in surveillance with Rinicom's proprietary mesh networking, COFDM robust waveform and smart routing technologies to create a truly game-changing surveillance asset, supporting a seamless network of (meshcompatible) interconnected systems that sustain high-throughput data sharing exchange and communications relay to third systems. VIDEO-MESH cutting-edge innovation will impact the surveillance market, introducing a unique, high performing, adaptive, secure and cost-effective dual-cam mesh networking surveillance system that is beyond the current market state-of-the-art and delivers improved protection of citizens, critical infrastructures and (land and maritime) borders

This Research project will have a direct and critically important impact on development of the Company's business. Without the grant, the VITAL project will be delayed, and may miss the "window of opportunity" in UK, European and world markets for state-of-the-art surveillance equipment. VITAL will form a major part of the product portfolio at Rinicom Limited for the next 3 years, providing full employment for 5 people in a North-West based high technology business. This project will generate the revenue necessary for future product developments by the company.