 Well, welcome everybody to yet another HydroTerror 101 webinar. Many thanks for joining us today. So today we're going to talk about dust, noise and vibration compliance monitoring. And we're lucky to have ACCO-M here as one of our suppliers to talk about in particular these types of monitoring used for reference stations around compliance monitoring. Even Nell from ACCO-M will be bringing us a comprehensive discussion on that topic. Before we get started, just a little bit of housekeeping. Sorry, there's a picture of even for you and myself. Okay. So as most of you would be aware, we really love getting your industry feedback and love the technical questions too. So at the top of your screens, there's a Q&A button you can push. So please use that to record your questions. Don't use the chat function, use the Q&A function to log your questions. It's a bit of a way for me to structure the answers at the end, but looking forward to lots of questions. All right, why does HydroTerror undertake these webinars? Look, they serve some really important purposes for us. They generate awareness on what HydroTerror is specializing in and what we can provide to you as a service, both around methods we've developed, but also technologies that we can provide. Secondly, they provide a high level of training and we love sharing that knowledge with yourselves. I think that's a really important function. And lastly, it's about getting feedback from industry on questions you may have regarding these topics and hoping to share knowledge. So we see this as a two-way transfer of knowledge. All right, so in terms of the running sheet for the today, I will do a brief introduction of Eben and then he will run through a bit of background about ACO-M, our relationship with ACO-M, and then he will be delving into some terminology around the monitoring side of things and discussing monitoring stations, some of their requirements and some of their features. He'll then be talking about some case studies. Finally, we will then move to the question and answer session. Just before we launch into that, just sort of give you a bit of context of what our HydroTerror is building. So we're developing a marketplace for environmental monitoring technologies. We want to be the leader in that space, providing the largest range, but also the most technical support around those technologies. So part of that marketplace that we're developing is focusing on dust noise and vibration. We have several suppliers that exist within that marketplace, some of which I've listed there. So you would have heard previously from Iroquo on a previous webinar, also Ambusense and Draga, but today is ACO-M. We've formed a partnership with them because we had some holes in our range around reference stations for dust, but also around noise and vibration. So we're now able to bring those services to the market. Who is Eben? So Eben's engineering professional with more than 20 years experience. He joined ACO-M in 2018 specialising in their range of complex scientific and technologically advanced environmental monitoring solutions, including precision instruments, maintenance and calibration services. Eben has a diploma in design drafting and an advanced diploma in mechanical engineering. Most importantly to us, he has a strong background in this instrumentation. That further I do. Over to you, Eben. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for this opportunity to speak to you and quickly highlights the company. Starting with where we are and where we're going. The ACO-M group is a French based international company. They acquired Ecotec and as you know, Ecotec has been in Australia for more than 50 years and now we serve under their banner. Just looking at the world map, there's now more than 750 employees, 150 distributors worldwide with a revenue and excess of 100 million. Locations, North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, manufacturing centres, Australia, France, India, Sweden and the UK. And the main research and development centres in Australia, France, Sweden and the UK. ACO-M group, what do they do? Make a slight piece of it. Environmental monitoring is the main focus, but they also have an industrial monitoring site. I'll expand on the environmental monitoring. But looking at the industrial monitoring, they look at vibrations on a larger scale. So there will be bearings, anything that has bearings in them, balls, crushes, shafts, anything that drives. As far as environmental monitoring goes, there will be noise and vibration, tunnels and emissions and air quality and glass monitoring. So we look at noise, vibration and air quality in more detail today. The tunnel emissions one is a very part of our business, but there's something that's not applicable right now. All right, I'd like to thank Hydrotera for the opportunity to join with us as a partner. And we see a bright future for this partnership going forward. All right, just a quick description, a couple of descriptions of terminologies. Firstly, we need to distinguish between ambient monitoring and continuous emissions monitoring or greater known as SEMS. SEMS is high level, high concentrations. And if you look at the picture on the right, that is typical SEMS monitoring application with lots of pollution right there. And then ambient monitoring is a lower form of monitoring, lower quantities. And it will be something as indicated by the lovely campfire there. It's like a nice bacon, bacon and coffee. All right, compliance monitoring. Compliance monitoring. To do that, we use reference instruments. They are typically bulkier than the normal things you can buy on the internet or from your local store. They need lots of maintenance, regular calibrations and a little bit TLC. The other sector that we'll just briefly touch on we call the reference instruments and that will be something that can complement a reference instrument. I'll explain later. All right, according to the EPA, Victoria, the main particulars that we monitor for dust would be PM2.5 and PM10. And there are two different instruments in our range that are yet specifically for this. They are the BAM 1022. That is specifically yet for PM2.5. And that's the picture sort of in the middle on the left. And the PM10 dedicated monitor would be the E-Bam Plus. And that's the one at the bottom. These units, as you see them there, are mains powered. But they can all be adapted for solar applications. The picture on the top right hand side is a typical reference station for solar applications. These stations have been around for a while and we can make them work in Victoria, with the little sunshine we have, and also in New Zealand. They connect typically with 4G. We can also make them work with satellite connections in remote areas, operate from minus 30 degrees to plus 50 degrees Celsius. They work with full-tertate. The full-tertate lasts roughly 60 days, but that can vary depending on how best it is. Sometimes it lasts fast or run about 60 days on average, but sometimes it does go faster. These units need regular maintenance and servicing. The servicing and maintenance can be done on site by a trained technician. And then there's annual cooperation. These can mostly also be done on site, but they take up with longer. The picture you see there is a very nice unit in the middle of nowhere. They are available as a sort of, I don't want to say plug and play, but drop and forget almost. So they come on a concrete base or a frame that can just be off-loaded from the truck and with minimal time for the connection and set up. It's up and running. Next one, please. Dust monitoring stations. Now, this one is the Acumenche, and it is a NEA reference instrument. It is quite often used as a complementing instrument to a site where you need compliance. We have quite a few customers that have, say, four or five of these on a site and then one reference instrument. These units can do gases as well as particulates. The gases are shorter. So it's not an instrument that can keep on meeting the gas for a long period of time. Typically six months, and then you have to swap out the canisters. They can do up to six gases in one unit. They can do PM 2.5, PM 10. They record temperatures, atmospheric pressure, relative humidity. They can have add-on functionality, wind speed and wind direction. In certain areas, it is required to have a heated inlet. That's where there's a lot of moisture in the air. When you opt for that option, just remember we need continuous power supply. Solar power is not sufficient always to cater for the heated inlet. These units are very different to the compliant monitors. We don't need regular monthly service and maintenance or bi-monthly. You only need an annual service on them, and that's basically just a clean and to make sure that everything is still working fine. Make sure there are no insects that might nest in there. It also has 4G connectivity. We can also connect them via satellite. It just becomes really expensive. Operating temperatures, once again, minus 30, plus 50 degrees, and these don't use any full-detail. Noise and vibration. We use the 01 dB range of monitors. That's a part of the ACOEM group. Based in France, they are very active and always pushing the envelope, getting bigger and better, exploring new avenues and new ways of making it easier for the user. These units can be used for inspection and assessments, the transportation, industrial plants, building environments, wind farms, building performance, or they can be used for continuous monitoring. Then you can set them up on a tripod and just leave them to monitor. They're small enough to be handheld, so if you just need to measure something real quick, you can do that. Walk up to whatever's making the noise and take a meeting right there. For continuous monitoring, that will be construction sites, mining operations, airports, cities, or industrial plants. Looking at the cube, so there are three main units that we use. The cube would be the first one for compliance monitoring. That's easy to operate in your hand, but you can mount it on a tripod with a DIN rail. They communicate via the 4G network. You can also walk right up to them and connect via Wi-Fi. They all have GPS units in them and they can send SMS alerts. You can set that up to be in a certain event. It could be a low battery, or it could be movements if someone tampers with them. They have USB ports, so you can go up to them with a computer, connect right there if your Wi-Fi isn't working for some reason, and download what it is. They have an MP3 recording function, depending on what size SD card you use, varies the length. What is really nice about these, you set your parameters up front, but if you have a long trigger for some reason, it comes with your phone, and you can dial into the unit and physically listen to what it is. Then you can quite often determine whether it's your equipment or something external that's causing the disturbance. They can be mains powered or on battery. Battery, they'll give you a 24-hour battery life. You can set up detection filters. If you have ACROF flying over, you can filter that out, so it doesn't trigger events. But if the jackhammer goes off fairly close to it, then it becomes the jackhammer. All right. They're not meant for opening the environment as is. They come in a pace. If you want to put them outside, everything is compatible, or detachable. So the microphone is the unit on the right-hand side, and they can come with various lengths, five meters, 10 meters, or 15 meters. So you can have your unit in a construction site, for instance, or an office, and just some leads going to the outside. Similarly, the antenna could be mounted outside somewhere if you have bad reception and have extended leads to where your unit is. Next one. This is the fusion. So the best way to describe the fusion would be a cube on steroids. It can do everything that the cube does, but it's got a couple of tricks up its sleeve. It can detect vibration as well, where the cube is not designed for that. On the right-hand side, you can see the vibration sensors. They connect wirelessly, and you can put multiple vibration sensors connecting to one unit. Once again, they use 4G Wi-Fi or USB to communicate. They can send SMSs. Same battery life, 24 hours, and you can also set them up for filters. As far as vibration go, this 01DB Orion is the main unit to be used there. This is an IP67 rated instrument. It's basically fit and forget. You take the site, level it, install it where you want it to level it, and then it communicates from there. You can leave it outside. This is a compliance vibration monitor. 4G main communication. Once again, you can use Wi-Fi built-in instruments, built-in sensors and GPS. If someone tampers with it, you'll get an alert and it communicates with you by SMS for any events or low batteries. All right, let's quickly have a look at MET stations, MET monitoring stations. MET stations are really difficult because you have different requirements, but whatever you need, there's always a solution for that. Having a look at the picture on the right-hand side, that would be a permanent MET station with a swivel mast. It's a 10-meter mast. If it is compliance monitoring, that means those instruments at the very top need to be serviced and calibrated, calibrations once a year, serviced by monthly. And to do that, the mast swivels all breaks in the middle, break neck and then swivels down. The unit on the left-hand side is a more movable one. I don't want to say portable or mobile because it takes a while to set them up, but they can definitely be set up in a short period of time. It's a bump-up mast. That one looks like about an eight-meter mast. You need quite a bit of space for the guy wires and the unit is all in one that can be just downloaded off a truck on its frame and set up time is minimal. All right, the next one is blast monitors. Blast monitors mostly used in mining applications. Then we have two types of blast monitors, fixed or permanent one and portable ones. They have a web browser interface, full event history up to 12 months. They can communicate via 4G or satellite connectivity. Also the SMS triggers, triggers for events, exceedances, low batteries, and they are all solar powered. The one you see there is not all Victoria, it's got a very small solar panel. The Victorian ones and New Zealand ones have bigger solar panels. The main thing is we can be set up to distinguish or record seismic events and blast events and alert for both of those. Just a bit of information at the bottom. At the moment, we are monitoring roughly three and a half thousand blasts per month from around 190 blast monitors. Our capture rate is 99.9%. And that is largely to do with the fact that even if we lose connectivity to units, they all have a memory and you can go back afterwards and retrieve the information from the memory on the unit to fill up wherever there were blanks in the transmissions. There is always the possibility of a bigger integrated system and these come in various shapes and sizes. This is a walking shelter and it will have all your monitoring equipment safely stored inside under air conditioned conditions with just the probes sticking out one down. The next slide, you can see different environmental conditions from the very cold to the very hot. These instruments can work under all of those conditions. Just a little bit of a project highlights. We are very active in the mining environment. Ambient monitoring, one of our biggest customers and it's just one of many would be in South Australia. On one site, they use dust monitoring, med stations, blasts and noise all on the one site. As far as vibration monitoring goes, center one, vibration monitoring can protect priceless treasures. A good example would be the War Museum in ACT where they want to excavate right under the building with that magnificent dome to put a new display room underneath there and vibrations need to be monitored very carefully to make sure that the structure above is not damaged in any way for ambient monitoring. Very, very big example. We have the UK project called Breathe London and it's all about the AQMesh pods, the small units and they have hundreds of these units throughout the city and they measure various cancers and also the dust levels and compiling models of pollution in the city. And that's a fantastic way of supplementing your information and gathering and building a bit understanding of what's happening in the area. All right guys, thank you very much. That is all I have at the moment. All right, Aben, well, thanks very much for that presentation on the capabilities there. It was very polished and I think it sort of shows where monitoring technologies are headed which is more and more integration of systems and more and more functionality available to remotely, not only diagnose things that are going on but also remotely send send alarms and that sort of thing. So we sort of take it for granted now almost that most systems that we deploy up there will tell us when there's something wrong but that certainly looks like a real strength here. I suppose some of the key learnings around these compliance monitoring stations whether they're for dust, noise and vibration or weather, et cetera is there typically not small. Okay, so in our previous webinar a couple of weeks ago we were looking at the transition that we're seeing under the new EPA Act from I guess a focus on compliance to a focus on improved operational performance and how that might change the blend of instrumentation that we have out there. But these reference stations are still going to be very important to the EPA. They're not gonna be changing their guidance on that in terms of although they are reviewing it, I should say but in terms of these reference technologies that are tried and tested they will still be seen as the gold standard and these lower class sensors that we might have as complimentary to them will still ultimately need to be able to reference back to some of those sites from a compliance perspective. What am I trying to say is these compliance stations they're not small and compact, they're large and you've seen some great photographs today which show the scale of some of those sites. So at Hydrotera we think it's gonna be a blend of those sort of larger stations with more and more smaller sensor integrated to support them and provide greater resolution on sites. All these systems require maintenance and they all require regular calibrations and we see ourselves providing an important service role around keeping those systems going. So without further ado, I'm going to have a look at the Q&A and please get your questions coming. We have a couple of questions here at the moment. Okay, so this one's from Steve Cody. Good day Steve, spend a while. You mentioned that last monitoring can also do seismic events. Is it capable of monitoring a triaxial sensor for locating event sources? Does the timestamp come from GPS source to allow high accuracy of timing between stations? Thanks Steve, I can confirm that we do use triaxial sensors as far as the timestamp go, the timestamp is set on the unit, not from the GPS. That if there is a requirement, that can be something that we look at in the future but for now it's from the unit itself. Okay, there's a question here from Roy Wedemire. How'd you well Roy? Could you monitor biological factors like a virus? All right, question. That's a very important one. So we can't monitor viruses itself but we can monitor certain conditions that enhance the likelihood of catching a virus. You guys might have seen that the Premier of Victoria started initiative where he would like CO2 monitors in every classroom of every school. The reason for that would be if you have high readings of CO2 means there's not a lot of airflow necessarily in the classroom. And when that happens, as the CO2 picks up, you've got lots of people in there breathing and they could potentially spread the virus like that. If your CO2 levels are really low, it means there's good ventilation and the chance of transmitting anything is very low as well or there's no one in the class. The other thing is with the reference instruments for PM outside, they can't monitor for viruses but they can definitely track pollen. So with the med stations, you can build models and find out how pollen is moving around. So I have a question for you on that front, Eben. So we're certainly seeing a lot more software functionality in people's cloud-hosted services for doing quasi-modelling effectively. Do you guys have models that are effectively part of your... So we've got an integrated network of dust sensors, for example, does the visualization software sort of go to the point of demonstrating plume movement and that sort of thing. We prefer to stay out of the speculation side of things. We just supply the instruments. The data that comes out of there can be interpreted by yourself, but we don't do that. Okay. I had another technical question. Oh, sorry, there's a couple more that have popped up in the question, one from Alex Campbell. Do you undertake monitoring of wind generators and wind farms? What technologies are used if you do? Yes, we definitely do. It depends on what you're looking for. Would be wind speed. Then we have the med stations. We've got a couple of stations that have really high towers up to 80 meters high. Suspended towers to monitor wind speeds at various heights. The other thing that we also do for them is sound and vibration. Okay. I had another question. Oh, hang on, sorry, Reza's coming with a question. Reza Nubat, I hope I pronounced that correctly. In a developed area where rock excavation is happening during the construction of basement levels, could you please advise the best location for setting up vibration monitoring devices to monitor any effect on the existing neighbouring buildings? Yes, it would be quite easy to have a monitor at pretty much each adjacent building. So you can have, basically surround your site with a monitor and it can be either noise or vibration. These units are small enough and they can be installed into any garden and they claim they're not gonna affect the owner or anyone in that area. Would they be deployed inside or outside? Depend on that location. So if someone is breaking through a wall in a building and you don't want to disturb the offices above or below, you can put the units inside and there could be a fusion, something fairly small, like a fusion, or you can go all the way and put Narayan in there and they can measure just local or if you wanna go something really big and you have to demolish the whole building, you can put sensors in the area and get the readings from there. Okay, and how do you discern what's a vibration from say traffic going adjacent to the site versus that actual activity like the excavation of the rock itself? I'm not the expert on vibration levels there. If it's sound, it's very easy to determine or distinguish between them. The instruments have the ability where you can phone in straight away. So if you have an exceedance in terms of sound and they're not very good at it, and it must be with vibration, you can phone in straight away to your unit and listen to what is making that sound. And then you can pick up whether it's a crossing vehicle, an airplane flying over, or that jackhammer working right there. These things are all recorded and they can be analyzed afterwards as well. So typically when you're deploying these sorts of system, are you working in collaboration with one of the engineering consultants? Or is the driver more for an operational site and they're doing the interpretation themselves? The demand for these units come from anywhere and everywhere. So we have a couple of consultants dedicated to noise and vibration consultants that use them. We have construction companies that have their own units. We have just the odd person that's complaining about a music venue and they would like to rent a unit for a month and put it on site and monitor the concert noise that comes from this venue. Obviously that's not Victoria, but yes, anything like that. Okay. You mentioned earlier about dust monitoring that sometimes you need a heated inlet and sometimes you don't. And you mentioned that that sort of depended on how moist a particular area is or the humidity I suppose. What is the cutoff when you would consider using that or not using it? What's the sort of guidance you'd give us around that? In the Northern Territories and Western Australia, we find that that's not needed. But anyway along the coast, Victoria and coastal South Australia, that's needed. And then all along New South Wales and up to Queensland where it's very humid, it's needed. So when we say very humid, in terms of, in terms of like even Northern Territory obviously has that sort of wet season. Is there, in terms of looking at weather data or just the typical annual data, is there a particular number or average or how should we decide or should we contact yourselves and just get gardens, do you think? I think the best is for the customer just to make contact with you guys. You'll have the skill and the knowledge really quick to be able to pinpoint that. And then it's a call from there. But it's really, really easy to determine. Quite often if it's an area that has dew on the ground in the mornings that require heated inlet, if you get a lot of fog, lots of rain and normally the drier areas wouldn't require heated inlet. Okay. Well, unless there are no more further questions, I think we might finish up there even. Many thanks everyone for coming along today. I think it's pretty exciting to see the diversity of the equipment that's available. And we're just beginning our journey with ACOM and they will be giving us a lot of training in how to support their units. And thanks very much, Reza, for thanking us. So we will be on a journey with them and we'll continue to provide information on the sorts of technologies that we can provide in this area. It's certainly broadening the suite of offering that we have for monitoring construction sites. As a business, we've always been very strong in the sort of water quality and groundwater monitoring aspects. But we're broadening our suite into being able to help that market sector in particular. So looking forward to working with you to be able to support you on your projects. But thanks very much even for your time today. It's been great. Thank you very much, guys. Cheers. All the best. Bye-bye.