GRAM - Gravity for Rivers, Agriculture and Mines

The coming gravity sensors based on Quantum Technologies (QT) have the potential to disrupt existing surveying practices through dramatically improved measurement sensitivities. GRAM is a collaboration between e2v, RSK, the Canal & River Trust, the Coal Authority, Cranfield University and the University of Birmingham (UoB) to establish the Quantum Technology (QT) gravity sensor market opportunities against assessment of current geophysical technologies to determine soil compaction for precision agriculture, detection of water levels in disused mines and mineshafts and canal & river embankment leak detection. GRAM will baseline the capabilities of existing sensor technologies in the sectors identified, provide technical specification and performance requirements to the manufacturers of prototype and commercial QT gravity sensors and establish a market pull from the end users of the information generated by the sensors. Moreover, it will provide a market sizing and market penetration assessment to determine the size of the potential markets, analyse the competitors and determine the cost brackets for each of the three applications together with expected survey methodologies.

Currently, geophysical sensors are commercially used in the three application areas, but they suffer either from localised in-situ installation (e.g. Earth Resistivity Tomography probes), thus not being able to cover large areas, depth penetration and resolution (e.g. Ground Penetrating Radar, Scintrex microgravity instrument) or contain a radioactive source (nuclear density gauges). This limits proactive asset management (earthworks), safe developments of brownfield sites and large infrastructure projects such as HS2 due to unforeseen ground conditions (mines/mineshafts) and increased food production due to poor soil health (precision agriculture). QT gravity sensors have the potential to provide information on water flow, water levels and soil compaction. GRAM will open up these new markets by: 1) Establishing the market potential for QT gravity sensors for leakages through earthworks, water level detection in mines/mineshafts and determination of soil compaction by benchmarking it against the most advanced state-of-the-art geophysical instrumentation currently used in these sectors; 2) Develop novel forward modelling and inversion techniques post-processing techniques to identify the signal of interest and demonstrate the potential of QT sensors; 3) Undertake field trials to demonstrate the real-world capabilities and limitations of existing sensors to identify the operational space for QT sensors; 4) Assess the market of QT gravity instruments in these applications and 5) Develop sensor specifications for the three applications.

GRAM will accelerate the commercialisation of QT gravity instruments in two ways: 1) ensuring that the sensor development and system engineering efforts produces instruments that are fit for purpose by providing sensor configuration and performance parameters with particular focus on time-lapse assessment and 2) increasing the marketplace for the sensors by engagement with a new client base not yet familiar with QT sensors, excellent dissemination activities, and practical field demonstrations.

The beneficiaries from this research are diverse and include:
1. RSK's clients (e.g. civil engineering consultants, town planners, utility companies, councils, Highways Agency, major projects such as HS2, Thames Tideway, nuclear industry)
2. surveying practitioners (e.g. RSK and others)
3. Canal & River Trust & Environment Agency, who will gain a better knowledge of the condition of their earthworks
4. Coal Authority & Developers, who will not only know the location of mineshafts, but also the water levels within leading to safer construction
5. Agri-Tech Industry, who will help farmers and business owners become sustainable in this challenging time
6. Famers, who gain better knowledge on the compaction of the soil thereby informing decisions to remediate this
7. policy makers, who could use the results to inform future monitoring schemes
8. civil engineers who can determine the condition of earthworks and thus develop novel engineering solutions and practices to maintain the aging infrastructure
9. UK-based and international academics.
10. the general public who would benefit from improved food security by improving soil health

The short-term impact of this feasibility will be that it will develop detailed technical specifications required for QT gravity sensors used to determine soil compaction for precision agriculture, water flow through earthworks impacting their stability and water levels in disused mines and mineshafts. Moreover, it will benchmark existing geophysical sensors in order to determine the market opportunities. This may also lead to improved/modified survey methodologies and data processing in the short-term before the commercial QT sensors come to market. In addition, it will determine the tolerable costs of surveys and/or QT sensors for the three different applications. This market penetration assessment will ensure the sensors are developed appropriately to ensure market pull when the first commercial QT gravity sensors come to market. In addition, the end-users are engaged early on in the sensor development process opening a channel of communication between the physics researchers, systems engineers and the practitioners. Furthermore, the practitioners' clients will be able to see the potential of the new QT sensors based on the developed forward models thereby providing confidence in their capabilities. GRAM will create the first ever assessment of using the QT gravity sensor for the three application areas. The engineering driven research takes into account user needs, promoting industrial adoption and generating social and economic impact, e.g. by increasing food production, reducing failures of dam earthworks and reducing risks of brownfield developments.

On a 10-50 year timescale, the QT sensors could revolutionise a wide range of industrial processes, as diverse as resilient communication networks; structural analysis (e.g. in aerospace); functional analysis (e.g. electronic components); improved oil and gas recovery; CO2 sequestration supervision; construction work using underground space; assessment of water infrastructure; detection of sinkholes; assessment of the condition of dams in flood prevention.

The researchers working on the project will gain enormously by working on a multi-disciplinary project that has a clear, practical application and requires active interaction with the partner company on the project on a professional level. This will undoubtedly make the researchers much more marketable and employable in the future. The academics will benefit by being involved in such a prestigious, multi-disciplinary project which has the potential to make a tangible difference in the future. This will help to further raise their profiles in the academic community.