Incubator

  • Start-up business

    Our Business Incubation Centre (BIC) of CERN Technologies support project leaders and start-up companies in their development

  • Accelerating innovation

    You have a project of innovative entrepreneurship, in connection with CERN technologies ?
    Our team gives you a support to help you to realize your project !

  • Technology transfer

    Creating innovative new products, services and business opportunities from CERN technology transfer

​Project leader

Claudio Parrinello

Summary​

Application areas​

Uncategorized

PlanetWatch

​Information​

Air pollution kills. In 2013, air pollution caused 4.2 million premature deaths, $ 225 Billion in lost work hours and $ 5,110 Billion in social costs (equivalent to Japan’s gross GDP). Air Monitoring is broken! Today, air quality monitoring is mostly performed via large governmental stations, installed in a relatively small number of locations. Governmental agencies publish the data typically after a 24 hours delay. This mesh is not dense enough to quickly detect some sources of pollution that can generate dangerous situations. Also, as data are not published in real time, delays in pollution peaks detection occur, with no timely warnings for endangered populations. As a consequence, many people do not feel protected by the government.

​partners​

​Aims​

The PlanetWatch network. We are launching a global network of air quality sensors and environmentally-conscious people. PlanetWatchers will have the possibility to install high-performance air quality sensors outside their home, or carry them while moving in the city or traveling. Additional sensors will be installed in partnership with local authorities, transport and telecommunications companies and other corporate entities. This approach enables us to quickly deploy low-cost, dense, real-time air quality monitoring networks that effectively complement governmental networks.

strategies

https://www.planetwatch.io/

​Innovative principle​s

Real applications​

Sensing is mining A grid overlay is applied to each territory with sensors connected to PlanetWatch. Each cell in the grid is dynamically assigned a status, which reflects the potential to earn Planets by performing air quality measurements inside the cell. An algorithm ensures that higher rewards are offered where fewer measurements have occurred in the previous time frame. This mechanism creates an incentive to carry out measurements in neglected cells, aiming to optimize coverage of active territories. It is possible to buy a sensor from PlanetWatch and operate it to earn (“mine”) Planets. It is also possible to sponsor a sensor already installed by PlanetWatch and mine Planets without actually managing any sensor. Sponsoring a sensor to earn tokens is our version of cloud mining.