Urbanization is a rapidly growing phenomenon. According to United Nations estimates, two-thirds of the world's population will live in urban areas by 2050. All of this requires the development of smart city initiatives supported by environmental, social and economic sustainability to keep up with rapid expansion that will heavily affect resources. of cities around the world.
Among the many recent technological advances, the advent of 5G technology will certainly have a transformative effect on the development of smart cities. It will accelerate a combination of smart sensors, universal platform, information and communication technologies (ICT), Internet of Things (IoT), energy harvesting, cloud computing and open source technologies, compatible with next generation networks (NGN).
Let's look at some of the new technological advances that promise to drive the growth of smarter, safer and cleaner cities.
Smart sensors
Smart sensors are used to monitor environmental pollution and other parameters. The design and development of smart sensors, a universal interface platform, along with the IoT framework, is not only a breakthrough in the field of environmental monitoring, but also in many other areas of the smart city, such as smart home, wearables, smart waste . management, smart electronic metering, smart water supply, smart traffic control, smart grid and remote healthcare applications.
Data from smart sensors is extracted and processed to implement innovative programs or solutions associated with everyday aspects of urban life such as utility poles, water lines, buses, traffic lights, etc. Sensors make data available to a broader community through remote access to the IT cloud.
As smart sensors rely on power from the wireless links used to transmit data, energy efficiency and security are priority areas. Efforts are now underway to develop sensors that are safer, more energy efficient, and easier to control and monitor. Smart city solution providers, systems integrators and software/chip designers are working together to meet the demand for low-power chips and safer sensors. These are providing smart cities with a wide range of new applications that will help improve infrastructure and services.
Microchip, Analog Devices (ADI), and NXP are some of the chip manufacturers that are actively working to develop better chip designs that meet low power consumption requirements for battery power applications. Manufacturers are producing many battery-operated smart sensors driven by microcontroller units (MCUs). The latest ARM Cortex-M processor, the Cortex-M23, specifically targets IoT devices and energy efficiency to handle power in the active and sleep phases of MCUs with the same energy efficiency as the Cortex-M0+.
Wireless connectivity and IoT technology
Reliable and widespread wireless connectivity is a cornerstone of smart cities. The structure of ICT is essentially an intelligent network of connected objects and machines that transmit data using wireless technology and the cloud. IoT applications help communities improve energy distribution, speed up garbage collection, reduce traffic congestion, and also improve air quality.
Municipalities, businesses and citizens can make better decisions that improve quality of life with the help of cloud-based IoT applications that receive, analyze and generate data in real time.
With the help of innovative IoT solutions, governments are now leveraging cellular and Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) technologies to connect and improve infrastructure, efficiency, convenience and quality of life for both residents and visitors. LPWAN technologies are rapidly evolving to achieve cost efficiency and ubiquity. Technologies such as LTE Cat M, NB-IoT, LoRa, Bluetooth and some others are contributing to the construction of smart cities.
Smartphones and mobile devices, as well as connected cars and homes, help citizens interact with smart city ecosystems in a variety of ways. By pairing devices and data with a city's physical infrastructure and services, it is possible to cut costs and improve sustainability.
Traditional elements of urban life – such as street lighting – can be transformed into next-generation smart lighting platforms with expanded capabilities. Connected cars can communicate with parking meters and electric vehicle (EV) charging stations and direct drivers to the nearest available open space. Charging may even be possible from the pole itself soon.
Other plans include integrating solar power and connecting to a cloud-based central control system that connects to other assets in the ecosystem. Built-in high-power LEDs can alert passengers to traffic problems, provide warnings of bad weather and accidents. Sensors and cars that adjust light cadence and timing help connected traffic lights receive data to respond to traffic in real time, thereby reducing congestion on the roads.
Smart Speakers
Battery-powered voice control smart speakers are characterized by ultra-low power consumption (active and standby) and real-time response. With the appropriate choice of flash memory architecture, its performance and cost can be optimized.
Because users want long-lasting battery life, battery-powered smart speakers must have ultra-low power consumption during idle state. They should also provide an immediate response as soon as users speak their command word. But smart speakers can only be effective when they keep average power consumption low enough to run on batteries. They do not need to be connected to external power all the time. Therefore, an energy-efficient AI system becomes imperative.
Since real-time AI algorithms require a lot of CPU power, the need is for a large and powerful CPU with a lot of memory. And because users want long battery life, the system must have ultra-low power consumption while AI algorithms try to detect the wake word quickly. The device must be able to provide immediate response as soon as users speak their command word.
These requirements cannot be achieved with just one CPU core and one memory system. The solution is to use two or more cores, with different memory systems. It can be in the form of two separate MCUs or a single-chip system-on-chip (SoC) with a multi-core CPU, a single MCU, an AI accelerator, a GPU, or any of these combinations. These systems require memory ranging from a few hundred megabytes to several gigabytes, unlike systems that are limited to handling just a few spoken commands that require much less memory.
Case studies on sustainable smart cities
The objective of smart cities is to improve the quality of life of their citizens through technological means, integrating technology, information and data solutions with sustainability as a key value. Smart trash can automatically send data to waste management companies and schedule collection as and when needed, rather than on a pre-planned schedule.
As a smart city follows a predominantly ICT framework, it strives to develop, deploy and promote sustainable development practices to address the growing challenges of urbanization.
The city of Columbus, USA, has proposed the deployment of three autonomous electric buses to connect a new rapid transit center to a commercial area, connecting more residents to jobs. It will also use data analysis to improve access to healthcare in a neighborhood that currently has a high infant mortality rate; will allow the city to offer better transportation options to those most in need of prenatal care.
Another noteworthy case is the Danish capital, Copenhagen, which has set the ambition to become the first carbon-neutral capital by 2025. It has successfully started to apply the following sustainable urban solutions to tackle climate change:
- Integrated transport and cycling solutions have resulted in increased mobility, reduced congestion and improved health for its citizens. Instead of driving or using public transport, approximately 45% of Copenhageners cycle to work or school every day, which is generally a much healthier alternative.
- A new district cooling system, where cold water is taken from harbor water, saves 70% of energy compared to traditional air conditioning. Seawater and an environmentally friendly natural refrigerant – ammonia – are used in the cooling system. The city's central plant produces chilled water and distributes it through a network of pipelines to customers.
- From November to April, when the seawater is cold enough, it operates alone in a free-cooling unit with plate heat exchangers. In the other months, sea water acts as a cooling agent in the condensers of compressor chillers that use ammonia as a natural refrigerant. During the summer months, when demand is highest, the plant uses an absorption chiller that runs on waste steam from a local waste incineration plant, a process called “absorption cooling.”
- Copenhagen is developing Hans Tavsens Park, which will serve as a rainwater catchment for the neighborhood, capable of capturing and storing 18,000 cubic meters of rainwater at any given time.
- There is also a plan to regenerate the inner Nørrebro area of the city, particularly addressing the issue of thunderstorms (sudden, heavy bouts of precipitation that can result in flooding and other problems).
Security, privacy and other concerns
Smart city citizens can get an additional layer of protection and emergency support through connected cameras, smart road systems and public safety monitoring systems, as and when needed. Additionally, urban planners can leverage pervasive connectivity, open data, end-to-end security, and software monetization solutions to align the evolving needs of smart cities for a much better experience for all ecosystem partners.
To defend against hackers, cyberattacks and data theft, smart cities need physical data vaults and strong authentication and identity management solutions.
There is an urgent need on the part of all ecosystem partners — governments, enterprises, software vendors, device manufacturers, energy providers and network service providers — to integrate solutions that meet fundamental security objectives.
A smart city cannot thrive without actionable, real-time, and reliable access to data. Security solutions must avoid adverse effects, which is why the way in which information is collected, distilled and shared becomes fundamental.
As smart cities depend on reliable and accurate data, steps need to be taken to ensure that the data is accurate and free from manipulation. You also need to take measures to prevent the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive details about data consumers.
Furthermore, user interactions with sensitive systems must be difficult to spoof and have reliable integrity protection. To ensure data is only shared with authorized parties, strong authentication and ID management solutions need to be integrated into the ecosystem. These measures also protect back-end systems against intrusions and hackers.
All participants in the ecosystem share information and combine it with contextual data that is analyzed and acted upon in real time. Smart cities need to address privacy concerns and fear of security breaches in the information sharing process. Thus, it becomes crucial for various sectors to achieve better and sustainable results through the analysis of real-time contextual and sector-specific information shared between operational technology systems.
Undoubtedly, the future of smart cities is very promising, but all these issues still need to be addressed to provide a better scalable platform for secure and reliable network connectivity. Constraints in terms of budget, resources and continuous software updates are other issues that affect the implementation of smart cities. The solution to these problems is to develop smarter technology and more efficient use to avoid cost overruns. The key is to develop meaningful technology platforms and IoT solutions without massive investments.