Watson IoT shines a light on public safety
Echelon and IBM partner to bring cognitive intelligence to streetlights
Modern commercial outdoor lighting systems are being asked to do more than ever before. In addition to fulfilling their primary purpose of casting light onto dark roadways, parking areas, and public spaces, outdoor lighting systems are increasingly evaluated for how well they reduce energy consumption, and improve safety for both pedestrians and drivers.
Cities spend as much as 50% of their energy budgets on outdoor lighting, with a single streetlight emitting an estimated 200 kg of CO2. Increasingly, cities seek strategies for energy efficiency and carbon reductions, while meeting other objectives, such as reducing operating and maintenance costs, and regulatory compliance.
Cutting edge IoT-enabled solutions are helping cities to drastically reduce the amount of energy used for lighting, save CO2 emissions, and reduce light pollution, while increasing livability and overall safety.
Echelon is collaborating with IBM Watson IoT to bring cognitive intelligence to its adaptive streetlight control platform, helping municipalities transform into smarter, safer, and more sustainable cities. Echelon will infuse Watson IoT capabilities into its next-generation, adaptive LED lighting control solution to form a ubiquitous, more intelligent infrastructure that can easily integrate IoT applications to address municipal safety, environment, and energy challenges.
“With a mission to continually advance our adaptive streetlighting solution, we are excited at the prospect of integrating the cognitive and real-time analytics capability of IBM Watson IoT into Echelon’s platform to enhance its inherent intelligence,” said Sohrab Modi, CTO, Echelon.
The platform will enable cities and municipalities to gather data from sensors and other connected devices, and leverage the power of IBM Watson’s AI to make smarter decisions. In particular, Watson will power adaptive decision-making processes, taking sensor data and using it in real-time to automate public lighting.
Because Watson is a cognitive system, it learns from and incorporates intelligence into the physical world. By combining IBM Watson IoT data with Echelon’s IoT connected street lighting architecture, municipal leaders can gain significant insights that they can use to improve public safety. IBM Watson IoT capabilities closely align with Echelon’s promise to municipalities — to let them more cost-effectively leverage innovations in technology that drive safety and sustainability initiatives.
“If mayors and town selectmen can have infrastructures that adapt to the data produced by billions of interconnected sensors and devices, they can positively impact crime and weather-related accident statistics. The omniscience that IBM Watson IoT will bring to our next-generation technology will be a huge asset for local and state governments.” Modi said.
With its Lumewave by Echelon® platform, Echelon is bringing its long-standing history in developing protocols and communication control solutions, as well as its next generation architectures for multi-application IoT networks, to the IBM Watson IoT collaboration.
To learn more about Echelon check out their website and read about IBM IoT solutions for smart cities.
