A few weeks ago we have learned that PlanetWatch startup, being a CERN spin-off, focused on air quality monitoring, launched their pilot program in 2 Italian cities (Milano and Taranto). They are building a multi-tier infrastructure to capture air quality data from sensors, analyse it, and store it on the blockchain as the global air quality ledger. They have chosen Algorand as an underlying part of their infrastructure.
Milano and Taranto with first 100 sensors seems to be just a warm-up, PlanetWatch is aiming for something much bigger, so lets digest the details, what is the potential here, and how blockchain fits into this picture.
What is PlanetWatch
PlanetWatch builds a global air quality monitoring network, by combining city specific partnerships and creation of a global community of individual air sensor owners, that will use PlanetWatch infrastructure and the incentive mechanisms behind it (PLANET token) to establish dense, global network of sensors. Their current focus is air quality, but I guess we can think of other similar use-cases coming out from this team or other teams in the near future.
PlanetWatch is building a global network of outdoor air quality sensors as well as indoor sensors, managed by people who care about the environment (PlanetWatchers). Some sensors are installed and managed by local residents, while additional sensors being installed by PlanetWatch in partnership with transport and telecommunications companies and local authorities (like Wiseair in Milan).
Planet Watch is recipient of Grant from Algorand Foundation, and is using blockchain to store the data in transparent and tamper-proof way (more details on this below). They also use Algorand blockchain to provide token-based model (PLANET token) and incentivise all parties to stay engaged.
In 2020, PlanetWatch joined the French Business Incubation Centre of CERN Technologies and raised 1.2 million euros in funding, becoming eventually a CERN spin-off.
“We rely on a wide range of leading-edge technologies. These include Algorand, one of the most advanced blockchains in the world, C2MON, a data-acquisition framework developed by CERNand a wide range of IoT-enabled sensors. Blockchain-based air quality and attendance records allows to prove compliance with best practices, regulations and new certification standards.”
Business Case
Air pollution kills millions of people every year worldwide, because many dangerous pollution hotspots are not detected. By deploying more sensors PlanetWatch will be able to better understand pollution dynamics and suggest more effective mitigation plans.
Most people understands the importance of assessing and monitoring health hazards related to our environment, both in a global perspective like climate change and locally, in our lifes.
Blockchain-based system like Algorand, can help prove compliance with best practices, regulations and certification standards. Tokenisation (mechanism of Algorand ASA) also provides an incentive framework for all parties engaged in this proces.
PlanetWatch will help to reach-out to governments and businesses to prove that their territory, or maybe just a bus, office space, restaurant or hotel is professionally monitored and safe.
PlanetWatch anticipates strong demand for real-time, data-intensive products and services that make people informed wherever they spend their time, indoors or outside.
There are multiple possible use cases, in the following domains:
* Local Government
For outdoor as well as indoor air quality monitoring, governmental customers can obtain high-resolution, real-time data for their territory, data analysis services, alerts and user-friendly web interfaces in a fast and cost-effective manner.
* Tourism
By deploying indoor air quality monitoring solutions hotels can inform and reassure customers regarding health and safety in their facilities. They can also deploy location-specific air quality informations (safe jogging zones) to their customers.
* Insurance Companies
Planet Watch enables a platform for studying correlations between air quality, building management and individual lifestyles. Advanced insurance contracts and SLAs, could be setup regarding an employer’s liability to provide a healthy work environment, or the management of venues such as airport.
* Public transport
Sensors can monitor the air in the vehicle and check if best practices are being implemented. Companies in these markets can develop a competitive advantage through real-time air quality monitoring solutions, leading to safer rides than their competitors.
* Individual Households
By linking an indoor air quality monitor to a smart home device, customers could then query the device and ask how good the air is, or get automatic voice recommendations “please open a window” when air quality degrades. With customer’s consent, indoor domestic air quality data could be monetized by profiling customers for ads on air purifiers.
* App developers
App Developers could build more advanced use cases on top of Planet Watch. For example they could add an air quality layer on top of Google maps and enable users to find the “safest” path, minimizing the amount of inhaled pollutants or find a safe place to go jogging.
Architecture of the Solution
PlanetWatch is building their technology stack based on 4 pillars:
* IoT Devices and Mobiles
* Big Data Management Platforms
* Artificial Intelligence for Data Analytics
* Blockchain for Transparency and Incentives (Algorand)
First layer are the IoT devices, which are installed either indoor or outdoor and will stream data to the Cloud Platform of Planet Watch. For the time being there are two types of devices available, but PlanetWatch is building their own devices to further increase data security and reliability, thanks to proof of data origin mechanism (devices will be certified, possibly the certification hash will be stored on Algorand blockchain to ensure no-one is trying to break the system with invalid data).
Currently we can see these 2 devices available in their shop:
= Atmotube Pro (Blootooth, Portable)
= Arianna (WiFi and Blootooth + Solar Panel)
Such a device is managed via mobile application or online by the end-user, and the data is being streamed to a global air quality ledger.
Before data gets into Algorand blockchain it goes through CERN data acquisition framework capable of receiving and validating high-frequency data streams from thousands of sensors worldwide (CERN Control and Monitoring Platform (C2MON)). C2MON enables heterogeneous data acquisition with configuration, persistence, historical data browsing, as well as alarm functionalities.
Once this above step is done, data still needs to undergo analysis by AI agents to ensure that extracted data is reliable air quality information. This is a pretty big challenge, providing that we get the data streams from heterogeneous sensors network.
To address that, advanced AI-powered algorithms come into play, to cross-calibrate sensors dynamically and filter out outliers and spurious data.
Eventually all gets recorded on the blockchain. PlanetWatch is leveraging Algorand blockchain to build a global, permanent, tamper-proof air quality ledger and to track and reward all data streams.
Most of nowadays blockchains are yet too slow, expensive or centralised, but Algorand seems to be dealing with these challenges well.
Important characteristics of Algorand network:
* Pretty fast blockchain enable to process 1k TRX/sec (soon to be upgraded to 10k TRX/sec)
* Low cost transactions (0.001 ALGO per TRX)
* Decentralisation, security and tamper-proof features, achieved thanks to its Pure Proof of Stake (PPOS) consensus mechanism
Algorand is also a green blockchain, removing the need for computer-intensive calculations to validate blocks, thanks to PPOS.
If this is the first time you hear about Algorand, I encourage you to study more how they approach tokenisation, smart-contracts, easy programming features and scalability. That is to the way they built their platform. Algorand is still evolving and new features are being added every few time per year.
PLANET Token
Algorand Standard Assets (ASA) is a mechanism to issue tokens on top of Algorand blockchain. ASA provides a standardized, Layer-1 mechanism to represent any type of asset on the blockchain. These can include fungible, non fungible as well as restricted fungible assets.
* ASAs are incredibly fast and secure, as they are built directly into Algorand’s Layer-1
* ASAs are low cost to execute, due to Algorand’s micro transaction fees,
* ASA ensure easy and simple asset issuance for developers and enterprises,
* ASA provides universal interoperability of all assets issued on Algorand.
This is why Planet Watch have leveraged Algorand to build their PLANET token on top of Algorand. Planets are utility tokens, and Planets are earned when a sensor sends valid air quality data to PlanetWatch platform. They also use Earth Credits, which are needed to obtain most PlanetWatch products and services and to settle network fees.
There will be a Max Supply of 4.5B Planet tokens in circulation:
5% of max supply is allocated immediately to PlanetWatch.
95% of max supply is used to reward air quality data sent to PlanetWatch over time.
Planets can be used to purchase Earth Credits from PlanetWatch at a discounted price.
Once the user connects the device to the network and the sensors starts streaming the data to PlanetWatch, the user will start earning Plant tokens for all quality data sets being streamed.
There are multiple parties engaged in the network, so the rewards are split between them as follows:
* 30% of the reward going to the Sensor Owners,
* 30% of the reward going to the Infrastructure Providers,
* 30% of the awards gig to the Planet Watch,
* and remaining 10% of the rewards going to the development Fund.
Obviously the quality of the data is the prime factor determining if the Reward will be issued or not. All the mechanics described above, like data acquisition framework by CERN, as well as AI for data filtering and segragation of data outliers, will eventually impact the size of the reward.
The token model is still being updated, but lets review how it could work for the mentioned 2 devices, basing on the current assumptions PlanetWatch provided.
= The Atmotube PRO sensor currently earns 0.06 Planets for each data stream. The default streaming frequency is 2 minutes, but the actual streaming frequency depends on a number of factors (whether the sensor’s battery is sufficiently charged and it is connected via Bluetooth to your mobile phone)
AtmoTube PRO = could earn even up to 1300 PLANETs per month (> 100 Euros) if operating at 100% efficiency.
***
= The Arianna sensor currently earns 0.09 Planets for each data stream. The default streaming frequency is 5 minutes, but the actual streaming frequency also depends on a number of factors (battery, WiFi connection)
Arianna = could earn even up to 800 PLANETs per month (> 80 Euros) if operating at 100% efficiency.
***
Keep in mind that this financial framework is still evolving and will be probably updated by PlanetWatch in the upcoming weeks.
Transactions, Blockchain, Adoption.
Definitely fascinating is the fact that with just a few clicks you can connect your IoT devices to a global air quality network and not only start monitoring your area, but also start earning your tokens a few minutes later.
Is anybody using this already?
Planet Watch launched a pilot in two Italian cities, with over 100 devices installed there, to validate the technology and deliver relevant test data.
Air pollution in Milano is high, continuously exceeding the limits for health protection defined by the European Union. Planet Watch installed in Milan 76 outdoor sensors in October 2020 and nearly 2.9M data streams has been sent so far.
Taranto is a medium-sized city in the south of Italy with severe air pollution problems. Taranto ILVA steel plant is responsible for 83% of Italy’s total reported emissions. PlanetWatch installed in Taranto 22 outdoor and indoor sensors in September 2020 and over 3.2M data streams has been sent so far.
Today more than 226M Planet token are in circulation out of 4.5B, most of which (225M) was part of the original 5% allocation to PlanetWatch (as mentioned above), and remaining token are being mined by sensors every minute.
If you order your own sensor, you will be able to login and register your devices with AlgoSinger, a wallet to play with Algorand blockchain and respective tokens.
Conclusions
Sensing is mining! PlanetWatch decentralizes, incentivizes, and gamifies environmental monitoring, enabling you (or actually your devices) to become part of the Internet of Things (IoT). While the air quality sensing is definitely fascinating use case, I can imagine different sensors for various other purposes (smoke, temperature, humidity, waterflow or rain sensors) being deployed in the near future by this other other company, enabling new business models.
Well – devices connect to the internet – you can say there is nothing revolutionary here.
What is revolutionary however are new incentive mechanisms, provided by application of blockchain, namely:
* monetisation, by applying a token model,
* transparency, by applying a public ledger concept,
* tamper-proof features, by applying decentralisation and security of blockchain like Algorand.
Todays companies who are overlooking the potential behind tokenisation and decentralisation of their business models, are at risk of being out of business a decade from now, if they keep on ignoring the possibilities of new business models thanks to tokenization.
DISCLAIMER: Please be advised that nothing in this video shall be construed to be financial, legal or tax advice. The content of this video is solely the opinions of the speaker who is not a licensed financial advisor. All personal opinion is intended for general information purposes only.
By Andrzej