With rapid urbanization, cities face resource and waste challenges. The IoT is helping authorities find solutions
By Lorenzo Amicucci, Business Development Manager, Nordic Semiconductor
The world recently passed a population of eight billion inhabitants, with most of those people living in cities. In fact, such is the speed of urbanization in the modern world that the United Nations predicts that 70 percent of the world’s population will be living in cities and urban areas by 2050.
Compared to today, such a degree of urbanization will add another 2.5 billion people to cities around the world. These people will need resources to live and work, further increasing emissions and energy usage. To cope with this extra demand, we’ll need smarter ways to manage these resources to ensure there’s enough for everyone. We’ll also need smarter ways to deal with their waste.
The smart city promises the answer. Defined as a place where digital solutions powered by the IoT are used to make traditional communication networks and computing services more efficient, a smart city is ultimately designed to enhance the lives of its inhabitants and businesses.
The idea goes back a long way, with Amsterdam leading the field in 1994 with its creation of a virtual ‘digital city’—De Digital Stad (DDS)—to promote Internet usage.
Others have since taken up the challenge, with Singapore, Zurich and Oslo topping the list as the world’s smartest cities in the 2021 Smart City Index.
Now a growing number of cities are turning to IoT-powered smart city solutions to help deal with growing urbanization, as well as tackling energy use, traffic congestion and environmental issues.
Smarter streetlights
One of the biggest energy users in any city is streetlighting. Designed to allow safe travel during the hours of darkness and thus an essential in the modern 24/7 city, streetlighting must become more efficient to save energy and reduce emissions.
Switching off streetlights entirely during the small hours when fewer people are about is one way, but hardly convenient or safe. Fortunately, more sophisticated methods are also being considered, including connection to the IoT to make streetlighting smarter and more responsive to energy demand. Connection to the network ensures the humble street pole can become intelligent and do much more than just light the way.
In addition to careful energy management, streetlamps can dramatically reduce electricity consumption by switching from conventional light sources to LEDs. The EU estimates that up to 50 percent of a city’s energy bill is made up of streetlighting costs, and that up to €1.9 billion ($2.07 billion) could be saved through the move to LED lighting across Europe.
These so-called 'smart poles' can optimize their own power consumption—for example, by switching on for shorter periods during summer hours—and provide feedback on the operational status of their LEDs. With additional smart capabilities such as automatic dimming and presence detection, street poles can make energy savings of up to 90 percent compared with traditional streetlighting.
Building a smarter city
As well as illumination, smart streetlights can provide a platform for sensors designed to ensure its citizens are kept comfortable and safe. For example, smart sensors can transform a streetlight into a hub for sidewalk surveillance and traffic cameras, air quality monitoring, weather monitoring, flood detection, information displays, contact with the emergency services, public announcements, and even Wi-Fi hotspots and electric vehicle (EV) charging.
For example, knowing how weather-related conditions such as rain and water levels are changing in real time can help a city prepare for potential flooding more quickly, allowing better protection for infrastructure and the community. This data is captured by connected sensors, while advanced analytics can be used to reveal trends and uncover key insights.
But smart streetlights aren’t the only platform for the IoT’s sensors. Inexpensive, low power wireless devices, powered by batteries or even solar cells, can be placed in many locations to provide granular data on factors such as water supply, electricity, smart building condition or the whereabouts of valuable goods. With a long battery life measured in years, these sensors can provide key data for IoT networks, while minimising network maintenance costs by limiting regular battery replacement cycles.
The high volumes of data generated can be used to feed machine learning (ML) databases which could, for example, highlight potential failures of essential equipment, allowing maintenance resources to be targeted more effectively.
Moreover, sensors in a smart city’s intelligent buildings can provide data on where the resources are being consumed. With real-time data on things like energy use and waste production, energy providers can optimize supply and waste management companies can ensure collection visits are timed only when necessary, minimizing emissions.
Connectivity is vital
Wireless connectivity solutions are needed to power smart streetlighting and smart city applications. Nordic Semiconductor supplies a full range of solution, including the nRF91 Series SiPs. These products offer LTE-M/NB-IoT cellular IoT and DECT NR+ low power connectivity. The technology offers robust, long-range connectivity with long battery life. Such connectivity is especially important for wireless sensors used in remote and tough environments that are difficult to access.
Nordic’s nRF91 Series SiPs offer powerful application processors, ample memory, and support for ML that allow sensor information to be analysed locally. This means that only the most significant information is forwarded to the Cloud, reducing power consumption and saving on data charges.
This significant Information could take several forms: depending on the algorithms, this could be people detected via sound sensors walking in large groups at unusual hours or unexpected sounds that could indicate a vehicle hitting an obstruction. These events are out-of-the-ordinary and are therefore worth reporting to authorities. Hours of non-changing and mundane data is not.
With long range connectivity, the smart city can help protect and serve a city’s population, while also doing much to protect the planet by ensuring energy and resources are used as efficiently as possible.