Internet of Things

Innovative technologies created in Russia have not yet found application at home

The domestic economy must become innovative - this is the goal declared by the country's leadership for the next ten years. To solve this problem, as it turns out, we need not only (and not even so much!) new technologies, but also the business need to use them. How innovative technologies can be effectively used by business is clearly illustrated by the activities of the Russian company MeshNetics, which exports innovations.

About technology

To control the heating of an industrial premises with a total area of ​​3600 sq. m uses a boiler with an oil furnace, nine fans with heaters and one air recirculation control device. The heating system is managed by the wireless building heating control system Link2Web, developed by the Swedish company BFM AB. Every year, the building owner saves 37% of the cost of fuel oil and electrical heating of premises. The source of savings are sensors that react in real time to the ambient temperature and air temperature in individual parts of the building.

Link2Web was developed by Swedes based on the universal MeshNetics technology. This technology is designed to connect technical devices for various purposes into a network to ensure their coordinated operation. Both the technology itself and the company that developed it are Russian.

About the essence of what MeshNetics is doing, its CEO Vasily Suvorov says this: “We are used to the fact that a phone can be integrated with a computer, car, etc., but other things cannot, that they work autonomously. So this is wrong.” MeshNetics technology allows devices containing microcontrollers and various sensors to be networked. It turns out to be a kind of “Internet for things”, the possibilities of utilitarian application of which are limited only by the imagination of the constructor, designer, technologist or simply the inhabitant of a home equipped with equipment capable of “negotiating” with each other.

The idea, by the way, has been in the air for a long time. Back in 2000, HP Labs employees predicted that someday the Internet would become a medium through which it would be possible to coordinate the joint functioning of objects in the real, rather than virtual, world. Let's say, traffic lights and car traffic or irrigation systems and constantly changing weather conditions. In this case, each thing (or, strictly speaking, object) will have something like its own email address.

A primitive idea of ​​what MeshNetics does is given by smart home technologies, which are simply a computer-controlled collection of household devices. But this is not even a special case, but rather an illustration of what we are talking about. In reality, the Internet of Things has a place wherever there are devices with sensors and controllers. Those. wherever technical systems are needed that have feedback with each other and with the world around them.

Story

At the end of 2006, a new participant appeared at the Electronics exhibition in Germany - the unknown Russian company MeshNetics, which also brought with it new developments. More than 600 participants showed interest in them, some of them later signed contracts. Three years later, MeshNetics has managed to take its share of the global market for technologies that combine things into a single whole.

To connect different devices with each other, Vasily Suvorov’s team took the data transfer protocol in ZigBee wireless networks as a basis and, on its basis, created a kind of physical infrastructure with built-in software. Thanks to this software, any device equipped with a sensor and transmitter is able to exchange information with other devices and form a flexible, resilient network. Such, for example, which will allow, in the event of a breakdown of one of the devices, to find a workaround route for data transmission.

Here's a simple example. The number of free parking spaces is determined by special radar sensors installed above the parking spaces. At the entrances to the parking complex there are displays with information about available spaces. Information about free places is sent to the server. There, on the server, all processes occurring in the parking lot are analyzed. Initially, such systems were designed for wired connections of devices, but this is too expensive a solution for a large parking lot. Instead, each sensor is equipped with a microprocessor, a radio transmission chip and MeshNetics software. Power comes from batteries that last for years of operation. No wires. It turns out cheap and effective.

A parking lot is a typical queuing system, to use the terminology adopted in operations research theory. Techniques for managing such systems have been well studied. The main thing is information about the operation of the system, received in real time. Organizing its receipt and use is much more efficient than building new parking lots.

Software and service

An alliance of almost 300 companies is working on technologies using the ZigBee standard, including Motorola, Samsung, Philips, and Mitsubishi. It would seem impossible for an unknown Russian company to compete here: Russia is not the birthplace of innovative chips.

However, we know how to program these chips. Other manufacturers of ZigBee modules use software from chipset manufacturers, and MeshNetics is debugging its own, ensuring maximum use of the capabilities of the ZigBee module, taking into account the needs of a specific client. For example, it takes into account the distance over which devices exchange data, which simply extends battery life.

Second is the quality of service. Mr. Suvorov claims that MeshNetics customer support is the best on the market. They say that most of the players came from the business of automating industrial processes or from the market of technical systems for modern buildings, while MeshNetics came from a world where quality standards of information and software systems rule the roost. It is possible that this is true. Previously, Vasily Suvorov headed the work of Luxoft Labs, where, in particular, he helped Luxoft’s main client, Boeing, predict the behavior of aircraft technical systems.

The fact that MeshNetics really manages to compete is evident from its financial results. In 2007, the company's turnover approached $1 million for the first time. By the end of 2008, it is expected to reach $3-4 million. The company will reach self-sufficiency in 2010, when turnover will approach $30 million (with market growth by 200% per year by this time it will reach $100 million).

About the market

According to Vasily Suvorov, in 2007, 7.5 million chipsets providing support for ZigBee were sold worldwide. ZigBee modules (they already contain all the necessary components for integration into technical systems, including a radio controller) occupy approximately half of this market (40-60%). In units this is about 3 million, and the share of MeshNetics is small - tens of thousands. But the company is growing faster than the market, by 300% per year. When the market size reaches 100 million chipsets per year, its extensive growth will slow down. Then MeshNetics intends to take advantage of some know-how stored for future use.

Now the margin of the ZigBee module is not very high. This is not a final product, but merely a product to be incorporated into final products. Applications developed for smart-things networks are more promising. One of them is Smart Energy, designed for power systems. Some US states have passed laws requiring companies that sell energy to have a feedback channel with the consumer: basic monitoring of air temperature at an energy-supplied facility can reduce energy consumption by more than a third. In the company discussed at the beginning of the article, a heating control system based on ZigBee modules - ZigBit from MeshNetics allows you to measure room temperature in real time and collect data on energy consumption. All these actions optimize the management of energy consumption, which ultimately significantly increases the efficiency of managing this resource. The building heating control system cost the customer $45,000, but paid for itself in less than two years.

Our innovations, Western markets

Entering the market cost MeshNetics several million dollars. The source of funding is the venture fund Oradell Capital, which is also the 100% owner of MeshNetics. The low entry price is explained by the fact that the company started in Russia. However, in its historical homeland it is present virtually nominally.

Vasily Suvorov explains this by saying that in Russia there are very bad conditions for working in electronics. “Problems with customs legislation, with sales channels, distribution mechanisms, implementation and integration systems...” he lists, sighing. It is for this reason that it is easier for Russian innovative business to develop in the West. MeshNetics' presence area is the whole world, including New Zealand, Australia, Africa and Japan. Central and Western Europe accounts for the largest share of sales - 60% of the company's total turnover. 30% - USA, 10% - other countries.

In fact, MeshNetics itself is ready to cross the border and pay taxes not in Russia. The main office and development are located in Moscow. 80% of the chips are produced in Germany, where MeshNetics leases the capacity of the chip plant. The cost of the device varies greatly depending on the quantity. For very large quantities of hundreds of thousands of devices, it is approximately $10 per unit.

There are also sales abroad. MeshNetics has offices in Germany and the USA. They bear the burden of product development and customer support. By the end of the year, production facilities will be launched in the USA. This is logical: this is where most of MeshNetics' competitors do business, and the market itself in which the company operates is also there. “Our goal is to turn an idea into money,” says Vasily Suvorov. “Where there is more talent, where it is more productive, you can make money safely.”

Well, that's understandable. An innovative economy is an economy in which innovation is in demand. But it turns out that there are a lot of Kulibins, but their ideas never find demand.

Prepared jointly with iToday.ru

Victoria MUSORINA, iToday.ru, - specially for Vremya Novostei