A Mosta company with an international reach plans to take the hassle out of looking for a parking space.

Sensors that determine the location of vacant parking slots in real time and feed the information back to drivers is one of the high-tech products under development at Handson Systems Limited.

“Our company began 10 years ago with a focus on tracking assets, the obvious first choice being vehicles,” founder and CEO Geoffrey Farrugia said.

He heads the company’s network that has expanded across Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

“Since then, we have diversified our portfolio and managed to claim a big chunk of the local market,” Farrugia said.

Much of the company’s recent efforts have centred around equipment built for ‘the internet of things’ (IoT).

The IoT is a network of data-driven machines equipped with sensors and software that exchange information for a specific function.

“Having more data in real-time makes for more efficient and better-informed decision-making,” Farrugia said.

The main component of these networks is known as ‘narrowband IoT’, a network that sacrifices data to save on power use.

He compared the technology to mobile phone data, which uses up a lot of battery power but manages to provide significant uploading and downloading power.

“The systems we use for the parking lot sensors are a great example of the benefits of narrowband over regular bandwidth in these practical applications,” he explained.

Handson recently showcased its parking product to the media.

“Sensors send a minimal amount of data (in this case, whether the parking slot is available or not) and power consumption is minor. System batteries can last up to 10 years and are easy to install and adapt.”

Sensors can have a whole range of applications, from monitoring waste bin site levels or freezer temperatures to optimising fuel consumption in LPG operations.

Handson has partnered with internet and cable TV service provider Melita, which bought a stake in the company, an achievement Farrugia considers a bright spot this year. However, he questioned financial reports which suggested all was well within the local ICT sector.

The ratings agency Fitch had reported that Malta’s ICT sector “thrived” in the summer, pointing towards 10 per cent growth rate from July to September.

ICT is a vast field, Farrugia pointed out, so this could be referring to operators who derived direct benefits from the virus pandemic such as increased demand for teleworking equipment.

“I speak to sector stakeholders regularly  and almost all of us took a significant hit this year,” he said.

“COVID froze a lot of our clients’ busines-ses, which leads to a domino effect for us.”