Array of things (AoT)
Keywords; Smart city, Open Data, Big Data, Sensors, Nodes, Chicago, City, Urban, Science, Policies, Research, Citizens, Environment, Infrastructure, Technology, Urban Sensing, Education, City Data.
What is Array of Things?
Array of things is a lifelong urban sensing project based in Chicago, launched at August 2016. The project is a collaboration between the University of Chicago, Argonne National Laboratory and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.The first phase of the project included installation of sensors around the city in order to collect new streams of data on Chicago’s environment, infrastructure, and activity, by measuring data on air quality, climate, traffic and other urban features, for research and public use. The pilot was funded with the help of a 3.1 million dollar, by National Science Foundation grant. Chicago is the first city to start this project but it is estimated to expand into more than a dozen other cities, including Atlanta, Chattanooga, and Seattle. The data from AoT will measure temperature, barometric pressure, light, vibration, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, ozone, ambient sound intensity, pedestrian and vehicle traffic, and surface temperature. The nodes will transmit data to a secure central database server at Argonne National Laboratory and will be published and available for the public for free. According to AoT 40–50 prototypes were installed in summer 2016, and will increase to 80–100 by end of 2017, and will add 200 more in 2017 and in 2018 and eventually will increase into a network of 500 nodes in the streets of Chicago. Future researches and invention will allow the sensors to monitor other urban elements of interest such as flooding and standing water, precipitation, wind, and pollutants. The goal of this large scale project is to provide a real time, location based data. AoT website and the city of Chicago’s Data Portal is estimated to be launched at October 2016. The question is how this visualization would look like, as well as how accessible it will be for the non researcher citizens.
“This initiative has the potential to allow researchers, policymakers, developers and residents to work together and take specific actions that will make Chicago and other cities healthier, more efficient and more livable. The data will help make Chicago a truly “smart city,” allowing the City to operate more efficiently and realize cost savings by anticipating and proactively addressing challenges such as urban flooding and traffic safety…Continued research and development will help create sensors to monitor other urban factors of interest such as flooding and standing water, precipitation, wind, and pollutants.”
What Can be Done with this Data?
Sensors monitoring air quality, sound and vibration (to detect heavy vehicle traffic), and temperature can be used to suggest the healthiest and unhealthiest walking times and routes through the city, or to study the relationship between diseases and the urban environment. Real-time detection of urban flooding can improve city services and infrastructure to prevent property damage and illness. Measurements of micro-climate in different areas of the city, so that residents can get up-to-date, high-resolution “block-by-block” weather and climate information.Observe which areas of the city are heavily populated by pedestrians at different times of day to suggest safe and efficient routes for walking late at night or for timing traffic lights during peak traffic hours to improve pedestrian safety and reduce congestion-related pollution.
public engagement
Throughout 2016, Smart Chicago will hold a series of community meeting on the AoT project, online forms are available and a new tool was developed by OpenGov Foundation(OGF), which is described as a bridge between citizens and government. The purpose of those open platforms is to create a space for members in the community to interact with educational components and built-in feedback loops. OGF is a non profit organization based in Washington DC which promote citizen’s ability to participate in their government, and hold it accountable through out civic technologies developments. The goals of those different platforms are to educate the public about the project, the potential of the research, and the sensors capacity. Understand the public needs out of the internet of things, and to collect citizens feedback about privacy and governance policies for the project.
Lane of Things
As part of AoT partnerships with the urban center for computation and data, and the school of the art institute of Chicago, they have created an educational program “Lane of Things” with Lane Tech High School in Chicago. The program will educate the students about technology, principles of the urban sensing platform, data science, analyzing data and so on, where they can come up with their own research questions and node designs. The hope of the curricular developer is to “expanded upon and adapted to other locations within Chicago Public Schools.”
According to AoT Q&A section online, the sensor capabilities have all been selected based on input from scientists and policymakers and other members of the public. Their expectation is that multiple groups could and will analyze the data, and the public nature of the data will supports a dialog among different parties interpreting the data.
Other Links & Resource
Here you can find the document program that capture all of those meeting context along with pictures and videos. The Chicago school of data, their interaction in the National Neighborhood Indicator Partnership.
