PIPEON Showcases AI-Driven Sewer Intelligence at Water Market Europe 2026

On April 16, the PIPEON Project took center stage at Water Market Europe (WME) 2026 to present a transformative vision for the future of urban wastewater infrastructure. Representing the project and TalTech (Tallinn University of Technology), Simon Godon delivered a keynote presentation titled “PIPEON Project: How to build AI-driven asset intelligence for Water Infrastructure.”

The event, held back-to-back with the IDEATION Final Multi-Stakeholder Forum, focused on the market uptake of Digital Twins and AI in the water sector, a core mission of the PIPEON project.

The Challenge: Managing Sewers “Blindly”

During his presentation, Simon Godon highlighted a critical bottleneck in current urban management: most sewer systems are managed “blindly.” Currently, inspections are rare, manual, and often reactive—meaning utilities only gain data after a catastrophic failure, such as a flood, blockage, or structural collapse.

The PIPEON Promise: A Digital Twin for Every Pipe

PIPEON is addressing this “data gap” through a sophisticated combination of autonomous robotics and AI-driven analytics. The project’s goal is to create a true Digital Twin of the sewer system, enabling a transition from reactive repairs to proactive, predictive maintenance.

Key pillars of the PIPEON approach presented at WME2026 include:

• Increasing Data Coverage: Utilizing autonomous robots to cover 5x to 10x more of the sewer network than traditional methods.

• Reliability in Harsh Environments: Deploying specialized sensors designed to withstand the high-humidity, corrosive conditions of underground infrastructure.

• Smarter Insights: Feeding raw robotic data into unified pipelines and hydrodynamic models to predict deterioration before it occurs.

The presentation at WME2026 successfully connected PIPEON’s technical innovations with potential investors, technology providers, and utility “challenge owners.” By demonstrating how AI-driven asset intelligence can strengthen Europe’s competitiveness in digital water solutions, PIPEON continues to lead the way toward more resilient and sustainable cities.