AI vision for clean cities: IDS supports research project on wastewater monitoring

Gaißer used the trade exhibition at the fully booked IDS event to showcase his application to interested parties from research and industry. Together with his supervisor, Prof. Dr Heiko Thimm, he focused in particular on current developments in event-based sensor technology, a field of the future that is also relevant to the further development of his solution.

PipeView is used for AI-supported monitoring of sewage pipes with the aim of detecting environmental pollution at an early stage. The basis is an IDS NXT rio camera with an integrated AI processor, which is trained using the IDS lighthouse platform. The system can automatically detect contaminants such as oil films, foam or particles. This reduces the need for manual visual inspections, enables critical conditions to be detected more quickly and avoids follow-up costs – even though the project is currently still in the development phase.

"Our goal is to monitor wastewater flows intelligently and detect environmental pollution at an early stage," explains Jonas Gaißer. „The IDS camera allows us to automatically identify contaminated areas and delivers reliable results even under changing conditions."
"Practical research projects like this demonstrate how open and application-oriented the AI ecosystem surrounding IDS is developing," emphasises Sigrid Rögner, Head of Business Innovation & Ecosystem at IDS, who moderated Computer Vision Day. "Young talent and university partnerships in particular bring new perspectives to our work – and we are delighted to support them in a targeted manner with expertise, technology and a network."
IDS Managing Director Alexander Lewinsky also sees cooperation with students as an important driver of innovation: "We are supporting Jonas Gaißer in the further development of his project as part of his master's degree because PipeView exemplifies how AI vision can be utilised for sustainable applications."

For his work, the industrial engineer from Pforzheim was awarded third place in the Student Awards at Environmental Informatics 2025 – as the only bachelor's graduate among numerous master's students. "The fact that a practical application with a clear focus on sustainability is receiving so much attention shows how important interdisciplinary approaches are in AI research," emphasises Prof. Thimm.

The underlying IDS NXT Experience Kit offers a modular complete solution for AI-based image processing – from data acquisition and training to execution directly on the camera. Thanks to its intuitive usability and open platform architecture, it is suitable for both beginners and professional developers and greatly facilitates the implementation of smart city and environmental projects such as PipeView.

More information: https://en.ids-imaging.com/ids-nxt-news.html