ACTIVECONTROL: Smart Cathodic Protection for Reinforced Concrete Structures

Partnerships

The German engineering firm Catódica GmbH is a recognized European expert in corrosion engineering, the design, and application of electrochemical remediation of reinforced concrete structures.

The Brno-based company egmenergo (EGMedical, s.r.o.) has state-of-the-art facilities for developing custom hardware, embedded software, and serverless cloud architectures.

The merger of these two worlds has given rise to a strategic partnership that has resulted in the comprehensive ACTIVECONTROL hardware and software ecosystem. Together, we are moving the building protection industry from a reactive phase into the era of 21st-century predictive maintenance.

Assignment

The service life of concrete structures, such as parking garages, industrial buildings, bridges, and tunnels, is critically threatened by corrosion of the steel reinforcement.

This is caused by the penetration of chlorides from winter road salting and the carbonation of concrete. Traditional mechanical repair methods, such as “chipping and patching,” often address only the symptom, not the cause. Over time, the corrosion then spreads to the edge of the repaired area (the so-called “halo effect” or “anode effect at the interface”).

Older impressed current cathodic protection (ICCP) systems, on the other hand, suffered from fragmentation—they separated current sources, sensors, manual measurements, and reporting into unconnected processes.

Our shared goal was to develop a unified modular platform that integrates power supply, sensors, autonomous control, and cloud monitoring into a single robust IoT ecosystem.

Call

The main technical challenge for the egmenergo team was to design high-precision industrial electronics capable of long-term, stable operation in harsh outdoor conditions and in the chemically aggressive environment of concrete.

Concrete is not an electrically homogeneous material—its resistance constantly changes depending on moisture content, temperature, and age. The system therefore had to be able to regulate the protective direct current in each zone completely autonomously and independently in order to eliminate the risk of excessive polarization and the associated danger of hydrogen embrittlement in prestressed steel.

It was also crucial to develop contactless solid-state high-speed switching technology for extremely precise measurement of theinstant-off potential and the subsequent depolarization curve, without causing mechanical wear on the switching elements.

Our solution

We designed and implemented the comprehensive modular ACTIVECONTROL platform.

At the heart of the system is the APOWERHUB local unit, which independently and precisely controls the protective current in up to 4 separate zones of the structure.

It is complemented by compact, multi-parameter AMOTE measurement units, which collect real-time data from built-in reference electrodes, humidity and temperature sensors, and corrosion coupons.

The entire system is powered by APWRLINK units via hybrid cabling (which combines low-voltage power and Ethernet communication), eliminating the need to install complex cable runs on-site.

Data is securely transmitted via industrial gateways to the APORTAL cloud interface, which serves as the digital twin of the building, performs predictive analyses, and automatically generates annual audit reports.

In addition, the platform supports the sustainable “Monitoring-First” concept—during construction, only sensors need to be installed initially, and active power sources can be connected only when the data indicates a real risk of corrosion.

Result

ACTIVECONTROL has successfully passed rigorous laboratory and field tests on bridges and parking garages in Western Europe and is currently in mass production in Brno.

We offer building operators a revolutionary tool with a projected service life of up to 75 years.

Thanks to active corrosion protection , there is no need to extensively demolish mechanically sound concrete that is contaminated with chlorides. This dramatically shortens construction time and minimizes noise, dust, and the volume of construction waste. The rehabilitation of parking lots, bridges, or tunnels can thus take place with full or only minimally restricted traffic.

The 24/7 system automatically monitors and ensures compliance with strict protection criteria in accordance with the international standard EN ISO 12696:2022.

Read more about the ACTIVECONTROL system and the ICCP principle in our blog post.