Created at the university and with support from Sebrae RS, the company offers an innovative solution that guarantees a cheap and robust network for monitoring water bodies.
Transforming the results of an academic activity into a product was the main challenge for a group of researchers from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) when they created TideSat Global in 2022. Three years later, the startup is one of the 50 finalists in the competition held by South Summit Brazil, the largest technology and innovation event in the country, which takes place in Porto Alegre from April 9 to 11.
Two thousand, one hundred and twenty-nine startups entered five categories. TideSat Global is competing in the Sustainability and ESG category. The winners will be announced on the 11th.
When TideSat Global was created, the team was already aware of the need to incorporate an entrepreneurial vision to transform an innovative technology for measuring water levels in water systems into a business. What they could not have imagined was that a historic flood of unimaginable proportions would hit RS two years later.
This is a summary of the early history of TideSat, a company that offers water level monitoring services using a technique called GNSS reflectometry. Data is collected using sensors that use the reflection of the satellite signal on the water to measure the level, according to the company's CEO, Douglas Leipelt.
“With this technology, developed at UFRGS, we can operate with low-cost sensors installed in locations far from the water, ensuring their operability even in the event of flooding. It is an effective and inexpensive solution that has the potential to popularize level monitoring among the population,” explains Leipelt.
The CEO reinforces the need for robust monitoring networks, to avoid what happened in Porto Alegre and other municipalities in the state, which had only one sensor, which was washed away during the flood.
The company offers data collection, processing, monitoring and provision through dashboards, using processing technology that is exclusive to Brazil. TideSat currently provides services to the municipality of Estrela and to the company Portos do Rio Grande do Sul. The sensor installed in Rio Grande for the company's monitoring guaranteed the official data used during the flood in Rio Grande this year. The company is currently participating in proof of concept for a possible contract with the municipalities of Porto Alegre-RS and Ipatinga-MG. In Spain, there is a sensor installed to measure snow height and in the USA and Canada for measuring tides.
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