Mafic, a leading UK construction technology company, has secured a major investment in its innovative safeguard Internet of things (IoT) solution for the construction sector. The investment from Errigal Contracts, a market leading construction company, will enable Mafic to further develop the wearable Safeguard devices through implementation with workforces, on vehicles and in materials at key customer sites.
Safeguard is an industrial IoT device that uses a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) sensor and captures location data from plant, materials and construction operatives. It is aimed at enabling the real-time communication and analysis of data from remote locations to improve the productivity and industrial health of workforces.
This investment follows the completion of successful collaborations to develop the new machine learning Safeguard solution, with the University of Southampton and funded by the UK£5 million SPRINT (SPace Research and Innovation Network for Technology) programme.
Mafic has recently been accepted into the Wayra 5G Construction Accelerator to push its 5G communications TRL to a new level and further develop business relations within this exciting new market. The company will leverage 5G technology to deliver construction intelligence to its customers with less latency and higher accuracy.
Will Woodhead, Managing Director at Mafic Limited said: “SPRINT has helped move the product development along to such a point where we were confident that Safeguard was investment-ready for seed rounds of funding applications. We’re delighted to be working with Errigal Contracts to refine the product further in workplace environments, and have SPRINT and the University of Southampton to thank for helping us to get to this position in our journey.”
Jason Carey, Business Analyst at Errigal Contracts commented: “We believe the technology Mafic has developed for the construction industry can change the way projects are executed for the better, we are really excited to be a part of this and look forward to the journey with Mafic to help make this happen.”
Dr Alex Weddell, Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in the Smart Electronic Materials and Systems Research Group, in the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton added: "The University of Southampton has supported Mafic through three SPRINT projects. The first two focused on using machine learning to detect and classify the worker’s activity, ultimately enabling the safeguard platform to accurately identify the task a user is engaged in, and to measure their progress.
"More recently, we assisted Mafic to focus on efficiently powering their system. We optimised its power consumption and enabled it to be recharged using solar cells or wirelessly over longer distances. This innovative application is a great example of the impact of the University’s research in electronics and computer science, enabled by the support of the SPRINT consortium. We look forward to working with Mafic again in the near future.”