Worldsensing HQ in Barcelona held the official kick-off meeting for the TotalScope project on 28th August. Consortium partners, the Technical University of Braunschweig and QubeDot, joined Worldsensing to launch the activities of this 24-month initiative that will enhance geostructural remote monitoring using non-invasive optical methods. 

TotalScope is a EUROSTARS project with a total cost of 1,021,200€. Eurostars is part of the Eureka network which is co-funded by the European Union through Horizon Europe, the EU framework programme for research and innovation. Eurostars is a Europe-wide programme set up to fund SME-driven research and development (R&D) activities. In Spain, the project is funded by CDTI while in Germany it is funded by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space. 

Coordinated by Worldsensing, the project brings together two European SMEs, experts in the industrialization and commercialization of advanced LEDs and IIoT technologies respectively, with an academic partner who conceived the device’s foundational concepts.

MicroLED power: small technology, big impact

Projects funded by Eurostars are market-driven. In this case, the TotalScope core innovation is a low-cost, portable 3D displacement gauge microscope designed for near real-time data processing and seamless integration into Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) systems. It addresses the growing demand for affordable, autonomous, and energy-efficient structural health monitoring of civil infrastructures.

The proposed displacement gauge microscope represents a significant innovation, with one of the main novelties being its ability to operate in three dimensions (3D), reconstructing total displacement data to provide a comprehensive understanding of structural integrity. MicroLED technology, in particular, exhibits energy efficiency, longevity, and durability, thereby improving overall system reliability. 

Thanks to the microLED nitride technology, we can now make extremely small and complex devices that are much more capable of providing data that is directly applied to improving our understanding of our environment and environmental safety.

Prof. Dr. J. Daniel Prades, Institute of Semiconductor Technology, Technical University of Braunschweig

TotalScope innovation will enable us to see how movement evolves over time with a very compact device. This new instrument will enable the measurement of relative movements and vibrations in 3D with:

• Micron resolution, sufficient to detect relevant movements in civil infrastructure.
• A large field of view, spanning multiple square centimeters, providing a broad dynamic range for tracking significant movements over extended periods.
• Real-time acquisition rates, offering immediate responses suitable for continuous monitoring. With further algorithm optimization, imaging rates of up to 200 Hz will be feasible, allowing for accurate tracking of vibration ranges in civil infrastructure (10-80 Hz).

Combining these three innovations makes it possible to monitor relative displacement, in three axes, between the lens-less microscope (i.e., the microLED array and CMOS camera) and a visual target attached to a mechanical structure. The system is designed for field surveys and continuous monitoring campaigns to identify failures and collapse risks by measuring displacements and vibrations at the microscale. 

“With our customer-centric light sources based on microLEDs we can now enable superior measurement techniques at the smallest form factor. In the TotalScope consortium, we combine all necessary skills to develop and provide devices to improve infrastructure safety at large scale” explains  Jan Gülink, CTO & Co-Founder at QubeDot. 

German-Spanish research collaboration at the core of innovation

The project will include technical validation through testing in real-world environments, at sites in Germany and Spain, respectively. 

TotalScope’s flexibility, high data processing capability, and ease of operation make it ideal for integration into IoT networks. This represents a significant leap toward autonomous, ubiquitous sensing, with the potential to reduce infrastructure monitoring costs”

Dr. Francisco Hernández, VP Innovation at Worldsensing

TotalScope aligns industrial and academic interests under a single initiative aimed at providing tangible benefits to infrastructure monitoring, reducing environmental impact, and promoting sustainable practices across multiple sectors. The project’s impact extends to UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs 9, 11, 13, and 17) by enhancing infrastructure safety, lowering maintenance costs and environmental footprints, and fostering international partnerships.

This project has received funding from the Eurostars programme with co-financing from CDTI and the European Union’s Horizon Europe Framework Programme for research and innovation.