E.ON FUTURE MAKERS CHALLENGE
Grid Uptime: 99.998%
EchoGrid Acoustic Edge AI
E.ON Future Makers Proposal • Edge AI

Passive Acoustic Grid Surveillance at the Micro-Edge

Continuous acoustic partial discharge detection, insulation fault arcing, and intrusion monitoring across distribution substations using a low-BOM quad-MEMS microphone array and TinyML DSP—with zero optical cameras and 100% GDPR compliance.

Target BOM: €45.00
GDPR & NIS2 Hardened
Power Draw: 0.8W (Solar Supercap)
NODE_ASE_DE_892 11kV Distribution Transformer #4
LoRaWAN Connected
Quad-MEMS PCM Feed (192 kHz) TinyML DSP Active
Acoustic Pressure
38.4 dB SPL
✓ Nominal ambient
Direction of Arrival (DoA)
142.5° S-E
±4.2° Spatial Filter
Speech Masking
HARDWARE DSP
GDPR 100% Stripped
Arc Discharge Risk
NOMINAL (0.01)
20ms Inference Cycle
< 8 Months
Full CAPEX Payback Period
€18,500+
Saved Per Prevented Outage
0 Bytes
Voice Audio Retained (GDPR)
0.8 Watt
Ultra-Low Power Draw
Interactive Edge Simulation Studio

AcousticSentinel Edge (ASE) Live Hub

Test how the quad-MEMS spatial array and TinyML convolutional network differentiate normal transformer hum from high-voltage partial discharge arcing and physical vandalism in real-time.

Acoustic Environment Presets

Real-Time
Ambient Wind & Rain Noise 25 dB
Distance to Target Bushing 3.5 Meters
Speech Masking Filter Hardware DSP Strips Voice Harmonics
Audio Monitoring Available Click "Audio Off" in the top header to synthesize real ultrasonic acoustic downpitched audio through Web Audio API.

Live Acoustic Waveform & Spectrogram Analysis

Source: Quad-MEMS Array @ 192 kHz Microsecond Sampling

NOMINAL - NO THREAT
20 Hz (Hum) 1 kHz 20 kHz (Audible) 40 kHz (Ultrasonic PD) 80 kHz (Array Max)
Spatial Beamformer
Direction of Arrival (DoA)
142.5° S-E Sector
Quad Delay-and-Sum Matrix
Arcing Probability
1.8%
Mechanical Impact
0.2%
Signal-to-Noise Ratio
32.4 dB
Neural Latency
18.2 ms

SCADA Protocol Output (IEC 61850-90-5 GOOSE / MQTT)

{
  "node_id": "ASE-SUB-DE-EON-892",
  "timestamp": "2026-08-13T12:00:00Z",
  "event": "NOMINAL_MONITORING",
  "acoustic_pd_detected": false,
  "doa_azimuth_deg": 142.5,
  "confidence": 0.984,
  "telemetry_size_bytes": 142,
  "gdpr_compliance_status": "PASSED_HARDWARE_DSP_FILTER"
}
                        
Frugal Systems Engineering

High Performance at a €45 BOM Target

How constraint-driven engineering at IIT Madras eliminated 90%+ of traditional utility thermal surveillance hardware costs while adding spatial acoustic intelligence.

Bill of Materials (BOM) Customizer

Target: €45.00
1. Quad MEMS Array (Ultrasonic)
Knowles SPH0645LM4H • 20Hz - 80kHz bandwidth
€8.50
2. Dual-Core MCU + TinyML DSP
STM32H7 / ESP32-S3 ARM Cortex-M7
€12.00
3. LoRaWAN + NB-IoT Multi-Band
Quectel BC660K / ESP-NOW backup
€11.50
4. Solar Supercap & Enclosure
C5-M Marine IP67 casing + magnetic mount
€13.00
Component Specs: Quad MEMS Microphone Array

Arranged in a 50mm cross geometry to capture acoustic phase differences across microsecond delays. Capable of directional spatial filtering up to 80 kHz ultrasonic frequencies.

Supply Chain: Global Multi-Source Availability: High Tier
01

Zero-Bandwidth Micro-Edge Processing

Rather than streaming costly raw audio or HD optical video over cellular networks, 100% of spatial delay-and-sum beamforming and TinyML feature extraction runs in 20ms cycles on the microcontroller. Only lightweight SCADA events are transmitted.

02

Direction-of-Arrival (DoA) Spatial Localization

The quad-microphone array measures inter-aural time differences (ITD) to pinpoint the precise angle of an arcing spark or mechanical impact within ±5° accuracy, identifying exact transformer bushings or switchgear bays.

03

Fit-and-Forget 3-Minute Installation

High-coercivity N52 neodymium magnets clamp directly onto transformer casing walls in under 3 minutes. No outages, zero wiring, and zero electrical safety shutdowns needed for setup.

Substation Fleet Monitoring

Multi-Asset SCADA Grid Topology

Inspect distributed EchoGrid nodes across an active regional distribution network. Select nodes to review localized acoustic health, discharge telemetry, and predictive maintenance alerts.

Territory: E.ON Westnetz Regional Grid #4 ● 4 Active Nodes Monitored
ASE-1
DTR #104 (Essen) HEALTHY (99.4%)
ASE-2
Substation #892 ARC WARNING
ASE-3
Switchgear #12 HEALTHY (98.8%)
ASE-4
Transformer #04 HEALTHY (99.1%)
Click on any node above to inspect its real-time telemetry log and acoustic health profile.
ASE-2 (Substation #892) Dortmund Grid Sector B
WARNING
Acoustic Health Index: 72.4 / 100
Detected Event: ULTRASONIC_PARTIAL_DISCHARGE
Estimated Fault Time: 14 Days to Breakdown
Cellular Backhaul: NB-IoT (-84 dBm)
Financial Viability Model

Interactive Utility TCO & Payback Calculator

Adjust deployment parameters for your regional distribution network to simulate upfront CAPEX, recurring OPEX, and net financial payback.

Select Currency:
Number of Distribution Transformers (DTRs) 500 Units
Average Unplanned Outage Cost / Hour €4,500 / hr
Historical Annual Catastrophic Failures 8 Failures / Year
Unit CAPEX (Node + Solar Base): €45.00 / node
SaaS & Connectivity OPEX: €0.80 / node / mo
Estimated Early Fault Prevention Rate: 75% Reduction
Techno-Economic Report Summary E.ON Network Model
Total Upfront Deployment CAPEX
€22,500
Annual Net Avoided Outage Losses
€117,000 / yr
Full Financial Payback
2.3 Months
5-Year Utility ROI
1,980%
European Compliance Framework

Engineered for EU Grid Directives

Ensuring zero regulatory friction across European Distribution System Operators (DSOs).

GDPR

GDPR (EU 2016/679)

Privacy-by-design. Hardware DSP filters strip human speech harmonics prior to feature quantization. Zero audio recordings or identifiable sound are ever stored or transmitted.

NIS2

NIS2 Cybersecurity Directive

Hardens physical perimeter security for critical energy infrastructure. Hardware Secure Element (ATECC608) with encrypted TLS 1.3 backhaul protection.

IEC

IEC 61850 & 60270

Fully aligned with international partial discharge measurement protocols. Acoustic telemetry events map directly into utility SCADA GOOSE messages.

AI ACT

EU Artificial Intelligence Act

Fully deterministic edge inference models with transparent risk score boundaries. Zero black-box generative AI deployed on safety-critical power grid assets.

Execution Pathway

12–18 Month E.ON Commercial Roadmap

A structured co-innovation strategy spanning IIT Madras prototyping to European grid scale-up.

MONTHS 1 – 4

Lab Benchmarking

Hardware optimization and acoustic partial discharge dataset creation at IIT Madras high-voltage testing facility.

MONTHS 5 – 8

Indian Field Trial

Deploy 200 pilot nodes on distribution transformers in extreme temperature and high humidity tropical grid zones.

MONTHS 9 – 14

E.ON Grid Pilot

Substation deployment across German and Swedish E.ON distribution networks for European winter testing.

MONTHS 15 – 18

Scale Commercialization

CE / IEC certification completion and automated manufacturing rollout supported by Infosys system integration.

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