It is a patented robot that responds to the name of “Clean Water Pathfinder”, capable of detecting leaks in a drinking water pipeline in total autonomy. After several underground missions in the network of the Canal de Provence, to refine the prototype, he will fly the colors ofAcwa Robotics at CES Las Vegas 2023. This young company founded in July 2018 in Corsica, and which today employs 14 people between Bastia and Aix-en-Provence, is indeed one of the 16 start-ups of the Provence-Alpes delegation -Côte d’Azur at this unmissable event for technological innovation.
For Jean-François Guiderdoni, co-founder and director of business development, this is an opportunity to make Acwa Robotics even better known, with a view to a new international fundraising, scheduled for next year. In just a few years, the start-up has multiplied the distinctions, raising 1.8 million euros in January 2021 with three investors, who put a million on the table at the start of 2022. It must be said that their innovation is of great interest to companies. water managers. “There is a strong commercial appetite from public and private players”, understates Jean-François Guiderdoni, who expects a first marketing at the end of 2023.
“20% of the water transported is lost in France”
“Last summer’s drought has again reminded us how much water is a resource that we will have to preserve”, he continues, before recounting: “In France, there are a million kilometers of water pipes drinking water, equivalent in size to the French road network. And that’s a lot. In comparison, the United Kingdom has a network of 550,000 km for an almost equivalent population. “The networks are between 60 and 70 years old on average, also explains Jean-François Guiderdoni. In France, 20% of the water transported is lost in the distribution networks, and we are rather good students. In the United States, it is 24% on average, and in Italy rather between 30% and 40%. »
In addition to the environmental impact, the obsolescence of pipes also has a financial cost for water management companies. Especially those, strategic and of large diameter, which are located between the treatment plant and the city. “When they break, it’s very complicated, you have to cut off the water to a lot of people, and the cost of a renewal varies between 150,000 and 800,000 euros per km”. Hence the interest of doing “preventive rather than curative”, says Jean-François Guiderdoni. But so far, according to him, it is difficult for water services to have an accurate map of the state of their pipes. They are not only buried, and it is sometimes difficult to locate them precisely.
This is where “Pathfinder” comes in, a real innovation rocket. First level: the embedded software. It is indeed impossible underground to use the GPS weapon to guide and locate it. “We are going to pre-program a mission for him, which tells him where to go, what information to retrieve, and where to go”, explains one of the founders of Acwa Robotics. Another level: its very design, to be able to withstand up to 20 bars of pressure and be autonomous over a long distance. “It evolves at medium speed and makes it possible to map and diagnose large areas to find faults in the pipes and bring back images and data. All this without having to turn off the water.