Safeblock | ESA Space Solutions

Objectives of the service

Provide a building safety management solution to monitor fire safety and HVAC system performance integrity through monitoring GNSS position-referenced IoT devices, and storing the associated telemetry data in a blockchain record. The objective of the project are as follows,

Accurately measure safety system sensors position and relative location in differing building deployments
Measure variations of positional accuracy and performance data captured across different deployments.
Measure the ease of deployment of the sensors factoring the percentage of devices installing without errors.
Measure reception of Safeblock messages at data broker and ledger (dropped packets, errors on encoding/decoding).
Measure identification of device interference / movement.

Measure device operation: Percentage of devices measuring expected readings, reception of command and correct operation

Users and their needs

Building safety regulations require ongoing maintenance and testing of a building’s safety features to maintain regulatory compliance. Testing is a legal requirement for compliant facilities management; however, compliance reports exist in a low trust environment as test and maintenance data reports need to be independently evaluated. The issue of low trust stems from the fact that there are limited tools available to corroborate self-certification and this contributes to a significant level of mistrust associated with safety compliance reporting. The Safeblock project is being deployed to provide corroborated compliance and building safety data by linking precision GNSS referenced sensor performance data in blockchain ledgers to provide corroborated, immutable safety compliance records. The solution aims to maintain a ‘Golden Thread’ of digital information which documents a building from construction to demolition, assuring fire safety devices are in the right location and are providing untampered data to create a time-series data set of fire safety compliance for communities and regulators. The solution is designed for deployment in Ireland, the UK, the EU and is designed for global deployment.

Service/ system concept

Safeblock sensors that use GNSS act as anchors into the physical world. They report their satellite derived position as well as a picture of the observed data environment such as cell towers (id and signal strength), gateways, nearby Bluetooth and Ultra-Wide Band (UWB) enabled devices. This information is then cross-referenced with the observed data environment of those nodes with poor or no GNSS visibility. The network is adaptable to devices with varying capabilities from simple Bluetooth Beacon to more advanced technologies. Bluetooth Positioning or UWB can enable more precise claims and enhance asset management. The claims of all devices are assessed in a data analysis stage, with GNSS anchors given the highest credibility and other claims evaluated on the similarity of their observed environment (nodes with no overlapping observable environment with their peers receiving the lowest score).

Space Added Value

Safeblock incorporates GNSS and wireless positioning to locate safety devices and record their relative position. GNSS will facilitate self location by the compliance device within a Safeblock network. Safeblock then validates all the associated devices’ location claims. This provides a trustworthy and scalable solution that addresses the needs of both building owners and regulators that are responsible for inspecting building and enforcing standards.