Partners: Environment Agency, Canal & River Trust, Northern Ireland Water/Aecom, RSK Challenge: Our partners collectively own over 10,000km of water retaining earthworks (embankments/dams), which protect large areas of the UK from flooding. Recent effects of extreme weather on UK earthworks have highlighted their vulnerability to climate change with numerous failures reported across a range of infrastructure networks. Given that climatic variations are projected to become more extreme, developing and maintaining resilient infrastructure is essential to our partners and all UK geotechnical asset owners. Early identification of poor/deteriorating earthwork condition is essential for cost effective maintenance and prevention of hazardous and expensive failures. Current earthwork condition assessment practice is, however, usually based on visual observations with little/no information available on their underlying internal condition. This project will demonstrate an innovative geophysical approach, using seismic surface waves (SW), for non-invasively assessing internal earthwork condition, while also adapting the outputs to ensure compatibility with our partner's management systems. This approach will support asset management decisions, including, for example, maintenance prioritisation; selection/configuration of monitoring works and selection/targeting of interventions. The speed of SW data acquisition, high spatial coverage and relative low-cost of these measurements will remove key barriers to preventative management. Aims/Objectives: This project aims to translate the findings from a recent EPSRC project "GEOCARE" to asset owners/managers of water retaining earthworks that protect the UK from flooding. The objectives (O) and supporting activities (A) are: O) Demonstrate an innovative approach for assessing internal earthwork condition. A) SW data will be acquired at selected partner sites and will be used to derive 2D/3D asset condition models. O) Adapt this technology to ensure compatibility with our partners' management systems. A) Project staff will be seconded to each partner organisation for short periods in order to better understand their condition assessment practices, databases, and to optimise survey outputs to their requirements. Regular stakeholder meetings with our partners' will also ensure that scientific, engineering and information delivery developments are appropriate. O) Permanently embed this knowledge and capability within our project partners. A) In addition to secondments and stakeholder meetings, guidelines on the integration of SW into asset ranking, prioritisation and intervention planning will be written. O) Widely disseminate the project's technological outcomes. A) A workshop will be organised to showcase the project's technological outcomes to a wide audience. Results and recommendations will be further disseminated through a project website, articles in industry magazines and via a case study with CIRIA. Main Deliverables: 2D/3D voxelated condition models will be developed for each partner's site, to showcase SW technology (D1). This will enable early informed decisions on maintenance and remediation to be made, thereby removing a barrier to preventative management. These models will be integrated within our partner's management systems (D2) following consultation and secondments at each organisation. Guidelines on the use of SW outputs in condition assessment practice (D3) will be developed for each partner to further embed the knowledge. A workshop will be organised to showcase the project's technological outcomes and benefits to proactive asset management to a wide stakeholder audience (D4). Results and recommendations will be further disseminated through a project website (D5), articles in industry magazines (D6) and via publication of a case study with CIRIA (D7). Duration: 12 months Total cost: £139,866

A secure and safe supply of potable water is crucial to the health and well-being of the population, yet this is hampered by limited knowledge of the hydrological process including groundwater changes. Not only having a better understanding of the source of our water supply is crucial, but also ensuring no precious water is lost or wasted on route to consumers. Worldwide though, leakage rates are between 20-30% wasting a precious resource. Recent climate change has led to more droughts in temperate zones while at the same time increasing the risk of flooding making the understanding of these factors even more vital. Invisible water storage such as in aquifers is the main source of uncertainty in future prediction capabilities of hydrological and climate models. Also, understanding water changes in peatland areas can help us restore and maintain these precious natural sites thereby ensuring the embedded carbon remains trapped and is not exposed to the atmosphere. Peatland restoration can significantly contribute to our ability to store carbon in the future. QS-GAMES will develop a transformative approach using novel quantum technology (QT) gravity gradiometer sensors for the detection of "invisible" water in soils such as monitoring of groundwater and aquifer levels and leak detection in buried water pipes. QS-GAMES will create a scientific evidence base for the use of cold atom gravity gradiometer sensors for these applications, trialling them alongside other sensing and data processing techniques to create more accurate mapping of subsurface water with a higher spatial resolution, transforming our understanding of the hydrological process and ensuring a robust supply of potable water in the future. To achieve these goals, the project utilises a wide ranging and diverse group of researchers who will work collaboratively, with expertise in QT sensor development, geophysics, buried utilities, hydrology, environmental monitoring, data processing and machine learning. The project has five main work packages: 1. Management and dissemination: This will provide steer to the project through the both the researchers on the project and a steering committee of industrial advisors, as well as engage with industrial stakeholders, end users and wider academic communities. It will review risks, dissemination activities and monitor progress. 2. Sensor optimisation and validation trials: This will evaluate the use of QT gravity gradient and MEMS gravimeter sensors using controlled scaled experiments in the National Buried Infrastructure facility and determine the optimum parameters for measurement of water in the ground using these sensors for both aquifers and leaking pipes. 3. Application Trials: This will test both the novel and existing sensors on well characterised test sites with extensive arrays of sensors providing benchmarking data and methodologies for the QT sensors. This will help identify additional survey challenges associated with significant variations in the ground as well as additional noise sources from environmental conditions and assess how the QT sensors can operate at optimised performance in this environment. 4. Data, hydrological and water flow through soil modelling: This will look to exploit the benefits of novel and existing sensor data by fusing multiple datasets to infer ground conditions more accurately, improving groundwater modelling and developing real time creation of gravity maps. The additional data will significantly enhance our groundwater models thereby providing more confidence in the temporal and spatial variability of the water flow. 5. Survey Methodologies and Guidelines: This will focus on developing methodologies suitable for the collection of time lapse gravity for the different survey applications. It will establish a quality control framework for gravity data and produce guidelines for practitioners to ensure rapid uptake of the technology in the application areas addressed.

The UK is the world leader in offshore wind energy; almost 40% of global capacity is installed in UK waters. A new ambitious target of 40GW of wind power by 2030 aims to produce sufficient offshore wind capacity to power every home, helping to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Offshore wind turbine (OWT) foundations, which are typically steel monopiles, contribute approximately 25% to a windfarm's capital cost. The size of OWTs is increasing rapidly and continued optimisation of foundation design is paramount. Recent research has led to significant advances through theoretical developments combined with high-quality field-testing. Despite recent advances, there remains significant uncertainty in the measurement and interpretation of key soil deformation parameters that underpin new and existing design approaches. The central aim of SOURCE is to use rigorous measurement and interpretation in the field and laboratory to quantify and reduce material parameter uncertainty and minimise the impact on the predictive capability of OWT foundation design methods. Improved site characterisation will contribute to increased security in design, lowering capital costs, subsidies and carbon emissions and meeting the UK's ambitious new energy targets.

Quantum sensing, imaging and timing will deliver transformative advancements across multiple sectors, including healthcare, infrastructure, transportation, environmental sustainability and security. These technologies make seeing the invisible possible: the inside workings of our brains, the infrastructure buried beneath our feet, the polluting gases in the air around us, the cancers lurking in our tissue or the drones in our crowded skies. These are some of the challenges we are poised to address. Our Hub in Quantum Sensing Imaging and Timing (QuSIT) brings together academic experts and industry partners, collaborating to translate cutting-edge research into tangible innovations. QuSIT will capitalise on a decade of substantial governmental and industrial investments, consolidating expertise and world-class capability from two established UK Hubs: QuantIC, specialising in quantum-enhanced imaging and the UK Sensing and Timing Hub. QuSIT will be a unified centre of excellence, providing thought leadership within the UK's quantum technology landscape, crucial to the National Quantum Strategy. At the heart of QuSIT is a world-leading and diverse team of 45 investigators, comprising both emerging talents and seasoned experts. Their impressive academic track record is complemented by a shared commitment to translating innovation from the laboratory to address real-world challenges. Our researchers have a history of licensing technology to industry and launching their own ventures. The technologies we will exploit are based on both atomic states and entangled photons to create quantum devices that sense and image otherwise invisible optical wavelengths, radio-frequencies, magnetic and gravitational fields, and exploit precision time, including: Optical wavelength translation using non-linear interferometry and non-linear optics Atom interferometry for gravity and gravity gradient sensing Waveguide optics for wavelength conversion Optically pumped magnetometers for zero and high absolute fields Metasurfaces for lightweight and compact optics Wavefront shaping for seeing through obscuration Data fusion of quantum and classical sensor data, using AI and Bayesian Inference Quantum enabled frequency sources to enhance radar systems Our approach revolves around co-creating research with end-users, fostering collaborations between academics and industry players throughout the supply chain, and rigorously testing and refining our innovations through field trials in partnership with our collaborating companies, pursuing new approaches to: Line-of-sight imaging of polluting, or toxic gases and chemicals Monitoring of brain health Screening for concealed and dangerous objects Imaging of underground infrastructure Mid-infrared, holographic microscopes for clinical diagnosis Application of precise timing for the monitoring of congested airspace The hub is supported by companies and other end-users many of which have made significant investments. These include BT, BAE Systems, Department for Transport, Great Ormond Street Hospital, National Grid, National Physical Laboratory, Ordnance Survey and Severn Trent Water. In the increasingly competitive international landscape, QuSIT will provide the vision and have the convening power required to ensure that the UK remains at the forefront of quantum technology internationally, delivering accelerated economic growth and societal benefits through collaboration between academia and industry.

In Europe, the total value of sewer assets amounts to 2 trillion Euros. The US Environmental Protection Agency estimates that water collection systems in the USA have a total replacement value between $1 and $2 trillion. Similar figures can be assigned to other types of buried pipe assets which supply clean water and gas. In China alone 40,000 km of new sewer pipes are laid every year. However, little is known about the condition of these pipes despite the pressure on water and gas supply utility companies to ensure that they operate continuously, safely and efficiently. In order to do this properly, the utility operator must identify the initial signs of failure and then respond to the onset of failure rapidly enough to avoid loss of potable water supply, wastewater flooding or gas escape. This is attempted through targeted inspection which is typically carried out through man-entry or with CCTV approaches, although more sophisticated (e.g. tethered) devices have been developed and are used selectively. Nevertheless, and in spite of the fact that the UK is a world leader in this research area, these approaches are slow and labour intensive, analysis is subjective, and their deployment disrupts traffic. Moreover, because these inspections are necessarily infrequent and only cover a small proportion of the pipe network, serious degradation is often missed and pipe failures occur unexpectedly, requiring emergency repairs that greatly disrupt life of the road and adjacent buried utility infrastructure. This Programme Grant proposes a radical change in terms of buried pipe sensing in order to address the issues of pipe inspection and rehabilitation. It builds upon recent advances in sensors, nano- and micro-electronics research, communication and robotic autonomous systems and aims to develop a completely new pervasive robotics sensing technology platform which is autonomous and covers the entire pipe network. These robots will be able to travel, cooperate and interrogate the pipes from the inside, detect the onset of any defects continuously, navigate to and zoom on sub-millimetre scale defects to examine them in detail, communicate and guide any maintenance equipment to repair the infrastructure at an early sign of deterioration. By being tiny, they do not present a danger of being stuck, blocking the pipe if damaged or run out of power. By being abundant, they introduce a high level of redundancy in the inspection system, so that routine inspection can continue after a loss of a proportion of the sensors in the swarm. By making use of the propagation of sonic waves and other types of sensing these robots can monitor any changes in the condition of the pipe walls, joints, valves and lateral connections; they can detect the early development and growth of sub-millimetre scale operational or structural faults and pipe corrosion. An important benefit of this sensing philosophy is that it mimics nature, i.e. the individual sensors are small, cheap and unsophisticated, but a swarm of them is highly capable and precise. This innovation will be the first of its kind to deploy swarms of miniaturised robots in buried pipes together with other emerging in-pipe sensor, navigation and communication solutions with long-term autonomy. Linked to the related previous work, iBUILD (EP/K012398), ICIF (EP/K012347) and ATU's Decision Support System (EP/K021699), this Programme Grant will create the technology that has flexibility to adapt to different systems of governance globally. This work will be done in collaboration with a number of industry partners who will help to develop a new set of requirements for the new pervasive robotic sensing platform to work in clean water, wastewater and gas pipes. They will support the formation and operation of the new research Centre of Autonomous Sensing for Buried Infrastructure in the UK and ensure that the results of this research have strong practical outcomes.