Worldsensing said the grant from the European Investment Bank (EIB) would be used to advance development of its product line of battery-powered, wireless, wide-area data transmission solutions, called Loadsensing.

"The EIB investment will enable us to accelerate our solution development. As a market leader in the space, we see safeguarding critical infrastructures as a mission that Worldsensing is uniquely positioned to deliver on," said David Deprez, chief financial officer at Worldsensing.

Loadsensing collects sensor data at critical infrastructure, including tailings dams, improving the safety of workers that normally collect this data manually.

Worldsensing's technology was used for instance by a mining operator to increase the hydrogeological control of a mine located at 3,000 meters above sea level in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile.

There, Worldsensing partnered with Chilean slope stability consultants Geosinergia, replacing the old data loggers with 60 Loadsensing 5-channel wireless units that monitor pore water pressure measured by the old piezometers.

"EIB is pleased to support the company's RDI strategy to further develop its next generation monitoring solution and wide range of important applications," said EIB vice-president Ricardo Mourinho Felix.

"Preserving our cultural heritage, creating safer work environments and monitoring the status of our infrastructure are only some of the results that can be achieved using Worldsensing's technology," he added.

Worldsensing last week launched the Connectivity Management Tool (CMT) within its Loadsensing portfolio  - CMT stores and processes data from geotechnical, geospatial and structural sensors connected to Loadsensing edge devices.