Apr 24, 2026
·Relations
Meeting with SIMAS
**Water Supply Infrastructure & Project Integration** This meeting with SIMAS (Serviços Intermunicipalizados de Água e Saneamento de Oeiras e Sintra) …
Continue reading ↗ElectroCap 2026, ECE @ IST
Disaster-ready water
storage system for cities
Partnering with:
Learn more
Meet our idea
Orbis is a redundant, remotely managed, and low-maintenance point-to-point system designed to store and distribute drinking water in populated areas when access to water is challenged by disaster, infrastructure collapse, or contamination.
LoRaWAN
Solar + Battery
Standard
dimensions
dimensions
UV
sterilisation
Multi-day
uptime
Drinking water
Authenticated access
Modular
Built around widely available industry-standard 1000L IBC tanks, its modular architecture allows for widespread use cases, redundancy and cost-effectiveness.
Designed to be always ready, Orbis can be installed as part of urban infrastructure and deployed in emergency situations, with minimal maintenance.
Or, as a continuous storage medium in developing contexts, where centralized water systems may be unreliable or even unsafe.
AI-generated renders
Motivation
What makes water vulnerable?
Public drinking water is highly dependent on fragile infrastructure—pipelines, treatment plants, power, and communications. When any of these fail (through conflict, natural disaster, drought, or contamination), populations can lose safe water access quickly, with limited local redundancy.
War, Sabotage & Cyberattacks
Water infrastructure is a strategic target. Damage to treatment plants, pipelines, or remotely altered chemical dosing can disrupt supply and compromise public safety.
Gaza Strip, 2024
Seismic Activity
Earthquakes can collapse underground pipelines and damage key reservoirs, suddenly disrupting access to drinking water.
Nepal, 2015
Extreme Drought
Climate-driven droughts reduce reservoir levels and system pressure, forcing rationing and increasing the likelihood of service interruptions in dense urban areas.
California, 2010s
Single-Point Failures & Cross-Border Dependence
Centralized reservoirs and treatment nodes create single points of failure. In parallel, upstream dependencies (e.g., cross-border river basins) can magnify geopolitical and supply risks.
Kakhovka dam, Ukraine, 2022
Pathogenic & Chemical Contamination
Industrial spills and biological outbreaks can render tap water unsafe at scale, creating immediate public health risks and surges in emergency demand.
Walkerton, Canada, 2000
Solution details
Long-term water storage
IoT Sensors
+
Remote management / maintenance
Disaster happens
Self service
All tanks are connected to a remote management platform that aggregates their sensor data and allows us to perform diagnostics, updates, and check if the water's safe. This centralized system reduces the need for constant manual inspections and allows for rapid response to any issues.
When a disruption occurs the system transitions from passive storage to active distribution mode. Because it's continuously maintained, the response time is minimal. The system is self-service, with remotely adjustable water allocation policies, even if power goes out.
Hardware
- IBC containers (Intermediate Bulk Containers), 1000L capacity
- Low-cost, low-power programmable microcontroller (Raspberry Pi, Arduino, etc.)
- Monitoring sensors for parameters such as: water level, pH, dissolved chlorine, turbidity
- PVC piping
- Authenticated electronic dispense, overrideable in case of total electronics failure
- UV sterilisation to inhibit microbial growth
- Activated carbon filters at the dispensing terminal
- Dot-matrix display for local information and debugging
Telecommunications
Read our whitepaper (pdf) ↗
- Low-power LoRaWan communication to nearest gateway
- Redundant localised system in case of server inacessibility
Stages of operation
Orbis is permanently useful!
Normalcy
The system hasn't been activated yet, however, we must still ensure:
- Strategic placement of nodes, ensuring maximum coverage and redundancy
- Possibility of use as a continuous storage medium in places where grid water isn't safe
- Continuous monitoring of water level, quality, and battery levels, with grid top-ups when necessary and trained maintenance personnel
- Availability of web portal and up-to-date public status information
- Ease of access to water for firefighting
Activation
The system deploys itself in critical time:
- Alert goes out and system instantly transitions into activity and dispensation
- Water levels and quality continue to be monitored
- LoRa is always up, no reliance on cellular towers
- Transition of energy source to battery backups and solar, if grid goes out
- Notion of available and unavailable nodes at day 0, and backup localized portals for authorities, if internet access is down
Catastrophe
Until access to water is restored, guarantee:
- Self-service access to water and tamper-proof tanks
- Dynamic and definite volume rationing, depending on local and individual needs, with inter-tank communication
- Critical information and status updates transmitted to authorities, independently of internet access
- Persistent modularity of transport from less affected to more affected areas, with possibility of empty tank stockpiling
Who are we?
Team leaders
Our team combines electrical engineering and telecommunications, computer science and distributed systems, geographic analysis and resource management for a multidisciplinary solution.
Scientific Advisor: João Nuno Silva (INESC-ID) · Supervisor: Duarte Mesquita (DEEC-IST)
Margarida Sebastião
Geography and Statistics
Also:
External Relations,Hardware and Communications
External Relations
Managing partnerships with municipalities, regulatory bodies, and institutional partnerships. Responsible for the project's outreach. Read their blog posts ↗
Finance
Keeping the project sustainable, they track budgets, cost-benefit analysis, material sourcing, and ensure the financial viability of the project. Read their blog posts ↗
Geography and Statistics
Location selection (figuring out where tanks should go) and how many people each configuration serves. This department calculates useful metrics and figures that help us keep our solution relevant. Read their blog posts ↗
Hardware and Communications
Our hardware designers project water level and quality sensors, dispense actuation systems, and physical interfaces of the tank, alongside communications and radio. Read their blog posts ↗
Software Engineering
Composed of two teams, this department works on the coding that powers it all, from page you're seeing right now down to the firmware that keeps the sensors talking to one another! Read their blog posts ↗
Firmware
Responsible for embedded firmware that runs on each physical node to automate distribution and remote tracking.
Software
Responsible for the server-side logic powering our web app and site. Developed in Django and a spatial PostGIS database.
Team leaders: Tiago Lopes Carvalho, Tomás Ribeiro
Members: Francisco Caravana
Project Roadmap
Today
25 Feb – 3 Mar
- Revised project proposal
Firmware/Software
- Team site and blog launch
External Relations
- Interview planning
3 Mar – 17 Mar
Requirements list
- Functional & Non-functional
- Maintenance, Assumptions & Dependencies
Finance
- Business & Constraints
Electronics
- Technical
External Relations
- User
Geography & Statistics
- Regulatory & Environmental
17 Mar – 24 Mar
Electronics
- Prototype bill of materials
Finance
- Cost management
Geography & Statistics
- Research
24 Mar – 31 Mar
- Draft of mid-term presentation
31 Mar – 7 Apr
- Final mid-term presentation
- Obtain materials for prototype build
7 Apr – 19 May
First prototype version
- Testing in normal & emergency conditions
Firmware/Software
- Monitoring portal demo
- Storage module demo
- Access monitoring demo
19 May – 26 May
Firmware/Software
- Prototype completion
26 May – 2 Jun
Firmware/Software
- Finalise site & blog
- Present live monitoring portal with prototype network
- Project demo video
- Pitch Deck
- EletroCap / ElectroDay poster
Hover over each milestone to see what's in store.