The Shift Towards Massive Data at The Edges in Smart Cities
Currently, there is a rise of IoT and people’s devices (IoT&P), along with a shift to process data generated from these devices at the edges. There is also a shift towards connectivity and collective intelligence where extensive data, the Internet of things (IoT), and people’s devices with embedded AI at the edges will play a prominent role in “smart” cities.
Up to 70% of the population will live in urban areas by 2050, according to the United Nations. These areas are likely to change, as the community is also becoming more depended on technologies, including emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI).
As technology develops, more data will be generated and gathered at the edges of the cloud. Humans have relied on data gathering since ancient times, that may date as far back as 7,000 years ago, encoded using pictures and symbols to track and record growth of crops and herds in Mesopotamia (Creativity and Data Marketing, Becky Wang). Today because of the IoT tools, there is massive data.
Data is a set of facts and statistics that have been collected together to be stored today by a computer and in the cloud. The data collected can be either qualitative or quantitative in form. Data and data analytics helped in the thrive of AI, in the cloud, and the edges, in recent years.
“Edge Analytics is the analysis of data from some non-central point in a system, such as a network switch, peripheral node, or connected device or sensor. It is an attempt to collect data in decentralized environments. As well, edge analytics in some ways go with the Internet of Things (loT)”. (techopedia.com)
Focusing on data along with analytical tools, have become the common element, to achieve better insights in society and to develop industry 4.0. To obtain the outcome by the years, 2020–2030, data has become the base of the long-term decisions.
According to Becky Wang, Creativity and Data Marketing, “data is already a currency that unpins many of our technologies advances and extends much further …”
Information and communication technologies will play a significant role in smart cities, which is created by data collected through the edges, such as self-driving cars. As the tech companies are launching self-driving vehicles, one can see that the role of how data has played heavily to create these industries and advances.
Tesla has been using data to create autopilot vehicles where data is sent directly to the cloud that picks up information about the external sensors and the driver’s hand placement on how they are operating. With the use of data, this has helped Tesla redefine their systems.
Smart cities must make use of loT and edge analytics devices to fetch data and efficiently process it to be implemented in areas that are in need to be analyzed for better decision-making or improvement. This will help developers to understand a city’s problem or an industry’s problem in ways that will improve the lives of citizens and businesses.
Some urban areas have already taken steps to be more efficient with their use of resources due to data:
- Los Angeles’ LED lights: LA is replacing 4,500 miles of streetlights with new LEDs. (forbes.com)
- New York and Chicago began to use data technologies that will create predictive models that will help law enforcement and emergency services target their recourses precisely. (forbes.com) (Juniper Research)
- London has become the top of the list for smart cities in the world, as they have taken action to use data and technology, which will make parking more accessible and more straightforward. (iotworldtoday.com)
- Oslo, one of the smartest cities in the world, has used data and informational technologies to limit energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Their goal by 2020, is to reduce emissions by 50% and remake their transportations in terms of monitoring parking and smart street lighting (iotworldtoday.com).
Additionally, a company that has also taken the step to be more efficient with their use of data collecting at the edges is !important. They work on creating software that will reduce collisions that could be fatal to the pedestrians and study the human maneuvers, through data collection, which will send centralized singles to the cloud and observe how the pedestrians have trajected their route to save their lives and eliminate traffic collisions. The software is embedded with P2V (pedestrian to vehicle) and P2X (pedestrian to everything) solutions for the automotive industry — a necessary technology for safe Smart Cities.
Thus, tackling the flood of data is essential to understand and respond to the rise of the population in smart cities. Without data collection and analytics in the cloud and the edges, society and companies would stumble as the quality of living will be surrounded in a dark and outdated era.
Using the technology to gather the data on pedestrians will help smart cities track the movement of people, which can be an excellent help for transportation. The potential use of information gathering of pedestrians will help cities and self-driving vehicles industry planners understand city-wide movements at a level of detail and accuracy never before achieved.
The use of data collection is the next necessary step for pedestrian safety. It can effectively and efficiently shape our future in smart cities by reducing deaths and injuries in traffic.
Data is the ideal light that will provide universal connectivity to create the cities of the future. The loT and Edge Analytics will play a role in growing data on a worldwide scale for the future.
