Building A Smart City Platform
Urban centers across the globe are undergoing rapid change and growth. Cities are becoming smarter, not just in the technology used, but how city planners design the spaces where we live, work, and play. In order to properly plan a city, the rules that govern it, and the ability to enforce the laws, city managers need the right tools and data.
Not Just Smart But Healthy
Noise pollution is pollution like any other and affects the health of citizens. Noise over 60 dB can cause stress and elevated heart rates. Lower-income zones have historically higher levels of industrial noise, disproportionately affecting community health. With the increasing mixed uses in our cities, city planners and managers struggle to create laws and ordinances that are fair and enforceable. The idea was to prototype and test an urban noise monitoring system that allows city officials and citizens to respond to noise issues in real-time.
What We Did
We built the LOUD (Live Outside Urban Data) platform that empowers citizens and officials to act on noise in real-time and create a better city. Key elements of LOUD include:
- Edge devices to perform noise analysis
- VANTIQ platform processes sounds and manages workflows
- Machine learning using AWS SageMaker
- A mobile app to allow public to report noise violations
How We Did It
Measure — Collection of real-time data from devices and third parties and historic data from APIs assess the facts. We created audio sensors that collect data in real-time and send it to the LOUD platform for storage and machine learning classification.
Decide — Workflow applications and collaborations process data and make decisions. We used an intelligence platform, VANTIQ, to analyze the data and make decisions on it.
Act — Client applications, notifications, and collaborations allow systems and users to take action. The LOUD platform sends notifications to users that allows them to collaborate and take action using a mobile app.
Plan — Managers and third party users can plan to improve real world systems. With LOUD, reports are created based on the gathered data to allow users to plan and improve operations.
Benefits of the LOUD solution
Simply, the LOUD solution improves the quality of life of its citizens. It helps local companies reduce the number of noise violations, city management the ability to make data driven plans for the future, and consumers the power to make more informed choices based on a city’s noise profile. By bringing together the right mix of applications and partners, LOUD was created in quick time to provide the solutions city managers need to address noise pollution challenges.
