Million Girls Moonshot
What are Some of the Technologies Powering Smart Cities?
Authors: David Allison, Writer, Teacher, Coach, and Tech Enthusiast & Justin Tucker, JANA, Inc. Technical Blogger
According to UN projections, 55% of the world population resides in urban areas today, with that percentage expected to increase to 68% by 2050. This means cities will become denser while relying on outdated infrastructure that won’t be able to handle these stark growing pains.
To ensure urban centers can support their growing communities, policymakers and businesses need to come together to devise a solution. At Intel, we’re developing new technologies to make cities smarter to not only support the influx of new urbanites but to sustain it as well.
Some of the key technologies powering smart cities are the new generation wireless (5G + Wi-Fi) networks, Internet of Things (IoT), and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Together, common problems like traffic congestion, public safety, environmental sustainability, and healthcare can be remedied to improve the lives of city-dwellers and avoid economic pitfalls. Take a look at how Intel is improving urban lives with smart city technologies.
Healthcare
If there’s one thing 2020 has taught us, it’s that healthcare is essential. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to sweep across the globe, large cities are finding themselves in troubled waters trying to keep their communities safe. Intel’s Pandemic Response Technology Initiative was implemented to help bring access to online learning for students, speed scientific research, and bring access to technology at the point of patient care.
In diverse cities like Houston, where minority populations are disproportionately affected by the coronavirus, rapid responses are needed to keep communities safe. That’s why Intel is partnering with local companies like Houston-based Medical Informatics Corp (MIC) to provide medical professionals with access to data to deliver remote care and protect essential workers from exposure.
What does this look like? MIC created its Sickbay platform, which collects patient data through bedside devices in ICUs and other care facilities. This data can then be sent to doctors, nurses, and other caregivers remotely through a PC, tablet, or mobile device to create a virtual intensive care unit. Healthcare workers can then use this software run on Intel architecture to monitor patient analytics at scale remotely.
Combatting the coronavirus isn’t the only obstacle. For large urban centers, creating a safe return to normalcy, however that may look, is just as important.
In 2019, Intel joined forces with the City of Houston to create smart city solutions through the ION Smart and Resilient Cities Accelerator. While this plan was formulated before the COVID-19 pandemic, it can still be used to create a more resilient Houston.
As the economy slowly reopens, with citizens returning to large gathering places like movie theaters, offices, and schools, ensuring a safe return is a top priority. The ION Smart and Resilient Cities Accelerator is partnering with local startups to respond to the pandemic to ensure essential workers like medical professionals, grocery workers, transit workers, and others can return to work safely without putting their health or job on the line. That’s why Houston is now investing in Smart Spaces, where fever checks, contact tracing, and robotics can create a more sustainable city.
Autonomous Driving and Transportation Infrastructure
While autonomous driving might seem like it belongs in the distant future, solutions are being made to make this an ordinary reality today. Autonomous cars are essential for creating Smart Cities, and at Intel, our technologies are currently powering millions of in-vehicle technologies at this very moment.¹
Mobileye, an Intel company, is building a robust autonomous vehicle system that can drive solely based on cameras that allows Mobileye systems to pinpoint the critical safety segments for which we truly need redundancy from radars and lidars.
Streetlights might seem like a simple structure, but they can be transformed to connect cities to improve transportation. Mindteck, an information technology company, created Zigbee, which is a smart lighting solution run on Intel architecture-based IoT gateways. Smart lighting solutions have the ability to enable street lights to be programmed or manually turned on, off, or dimmed from a remote location through Zigbee wireless networks.
Mindteck’s smart lighting solution can reduce lighting costs, increase visibility into building operations, and enhance occupant experience. Other smart lighting solutions are being developed to improve transportation, as well. Take San Diego, California, for example.
To improve city living, San Diego placed 3,200 CityIQ intelligent nodes, which is a smart lighting solution run on Intel® technology, powered by GE, built by Current, and offered through AT&T. These smart nodes integrate LED lighting with wide-angle cameras and other sensors, preconfigured networking, and local intelligence, and can be installed in any streetlight. Through this citywide IoT network, San Diego reduced 60% of energy use in its streetlights and saved $2.8 million in annual energy costs.
That’s not the only measure San Diego took to create a Smart City. The San Diego Metropolitan Transit System implemented the Cisco Connect Mass Transit solution, which provides passengers with fast Wi-Fi to receive real-time schedule updates, video surveillance to improve passenger safety, and more energy-efficient routes to save fuel.
Parking is another factor that leads to traffic congestion and fuel consumption. Through smart parking technology, video analytics can be used in tandem with machine learning to determine vehicle occupancy. Mindteck, an information technology company, uses Intel architecture to create smart solutions through IoT services. One way Mindteck is helping build Smart Cities is with its smart parking technology.
Wireless magneto-sensors, ultrasonic sensors, and Wi-Fi cameras can manage on-street, off-street, and multilevel parking by placing parking sensors in parking spaces, which can update routers based on changes in-vehicle presence. This data can then be sent to an individual’s smartphone mobile applications to alert drivers whether a parking space is open or not to reduce time spent searching for one.
Sustainability and Conservation
Sustainability is one of Intel’s top priorities when it comes to powering Smart Cities. Intel and Bosch are partnering to help cities analyze air pollution data to lower urban power consumption, connect cities to make them smarter, and spread awareness of energy solutions.
Cities are notoriously known for risky air quality — just take New York City, Los Angeles, and Beijing, for example. To improve people’s lives across the planet, we’ve launched the Intel®-based Bosch Air Quality Micro Climate Monitoring System (MCMS) to help governments, communities, and industries measure, view, and analyze data from numerous spatially spread devices. In turn, these entities will be able to make real-time air quality decisions to make cities smarter, cleaner, and greener for future generations. IoT systems are changing the nature of city living in more ways than one.
By integrating air quality monitoring systems with other systems like smart traffic networks, smart lighting, and smart parking, city planners can create solutions to ease traffic jams, detect air pollution, and bring positive change to metropolitan centers.
The Bottom Line
Smart cities are not a thing of the future. The technologies that can make cities smarter are here today.
Notices and Disclaimers
This article was sponsored by Intel
Source(s):
² https://venturebeat.com/2018/05/17/intels-mobileye-gets-self-driving-tech-deal-for-8-million-cars/
© Intel Corporation. Intel, the Intel logo, and other Intel marks are trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries. Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
