Photo : Among its many achievements, La Pati was responsible for the complete construction of the open-air ice rink for the National League Winter Classic between Bern and Langnau in January 2019 at the Stade de Suisse.

Guaranteeing impeccable ice quality is not as easy as it sounds. There are a staggering number of parameters involved – air and water quality, the evenness and temperature of the concrete slabs beneath the ice, airflow management and well-distributed cooling, to name but only a few. Former professional ice hockey player, Antoine Descloux, fully appreciates this complexity. The founder and managing director of the Fribourg company La Pati is currently developing an auditing system to optimize the energy efficiency of ice rinks.

His company reached out to one of its longstanding contacts, the Fribourg School of Engineering and Architecture (HEIA-FR), for help. Prof. André Rotzetta and his team of electrical engineering students draw on Antoine Descloux’s practical experience to develop various theoretical and practical solutions. La Pati then examines all aspects of these proposals in depth, including their economic viability.

Highly sophisticated algorithms

As Descloux explains, “Wireless sensors placed in the air stream, the ice and around the building let us pick up exactly where we need to optimize our energy consumption.” The data, which are collected in real time, are based on highly sophisticated algorithms developed by the HEIA-FR. The communication protocol LoRa, a pioneering telecommunications technology, is used to transfer this information over a centralized server.

Antoine Descloux is delighted with the technology transfer process. The project, which receives cantonal support via the New Regional Policy program, can also count on input from other local IT and electricity companies. The solutions developed so far have already been deployed, most notably at the Ice Hockey World Championship in Paris (France) in 2017 and Bratislava (Slovakia) in 2019. They passed the test with flying colors.