Smart Cities — Revolutionizing Urban Life with IoT and AI
Major technological, economic and environmental changes have generated increased interest in smart cities.
Climate change, economic restructuring, coronavirus, the move to online retail and entertainment, ageing populations, urban population growth and pressures on public finances have brought an upsurge in demand for technology to optimize Urban Life.
What’s a smart city?
A smart city is an urban area that uses different types of electronic Internet of things (IoT) sensors to collect data and with the power of Artificial Intelligence and Big Data, gain insights to manage assets, resources and services efficiently.
In a nutshell:
Smart Cities use real-time sensors and data to connect and improve every layer of the city.
What makes a city ‘Smart’?
Data is collected from citizens, devices, buildings and assets.
Data is processed and analyzed to Monitor and Manage:
- Traffic and transportation systems (Smart Mobility)
- Power plants (Smart Energy)
- Utilities, water supply networks, waste (Smart usage of Resources)
- Crime detection (Smart Security)
- Information systems (Smart Networks)
- Schools, libraries, hospitals, and other community services (Smart Services)
Basically:
The collected data is used to improve the operations across the city.
Benefits of Smart Cities:
- Reduce Environmental impact — Monitoring air quality and optimizing energy use can produce 15% fewer GHG emissions.
- Manage traffic and Congestion — Smart Traffic signals and control systems can optimize and relieve traffic congestion during peak travel times.
- Optimize waste removal — Sensor based waste monitoring for efficient waste management
- Improve water and energy management — Smart water management, to monitor quality, quantity and spot leakages and blockages.
- Increase Security — Smart surveillance to detect Crime and other dangerous activity
Tackling pandemics:
- Disease tracking — Software is revolutionizing the way we monitor outbreaks. By using big data and natural language processing, software companies can track disease spread in real time.
- Autonomous delivery — Contactless delivery has become essential in stopping the spread of coronavirus in cities throughout the world. Online payments have made this possible, but we’re just now scraping the surface of what autonomous technology can do.
- Geolocation — The apps on your cell phone collect geolocation data to sell to third party advertisers. This data tracks your movements and predicts future behavior. This same technology could be used by smart cities to analyze citizens behavior patterns.
- Internet connectivity — Another feature of smart cities is internet connectivity for all.Smart cities can help prepare its citizens for unforeseen situations and disasters such as the novel coronavirus. Using technology to improve processes and inform citizens are two great ways urban planning can revolutionize our cities.
A sneak peak at some of the World’s smartest cities:
Amsterdam
City data is available online for anyone to use, making it easier to understand social challenges and find solutions.
Dubai
Experimental robot called the Dubai Robocop patrols the streets 24/7 to keep an eye on criminals.
New York
LinkNYC is a system of 1700+ Wi-Fi kiosks that provide city-goers with free internet connection.
Singapore
The Smart Nation program addresses mobility issues and CleanTech Park hosts green industries/ buildings.
London
A network of 100 sensors take air quality readings and provide real-time maps of air pollution.
Barcelona
The Urban Lab initiative allows companies to propose sustainable ideas to improve city life.
Oslo
10,000 streetlights are equipped with sensors to adjust brightness by season.
(source : The Zebra)
In my opinion
Leveraging the power of “Smart Tech” can help create an automated end-to-end supply chain for consumers with minimal failure chances.
No one can afford to pause a country. Technologies like 5G, IoT and Industry 4.0 can be blended to create a crisis management system to minimize the impact caused by any man-made or natural crisis thereby enabling uninterrupted functioning of several services and supply of products in such extraordinary times. A smart roadmap can ensure continuity of essential economic and governance activities without putting the lives of people at risk.
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