Smart cities
Smart cities and sensors — how to maximize opportunity, and what not to do!
MEMS & Sensors Industry Group (MSIG), a SEMI, USA, strategic association partner, recently organized a conference on smart cities and sensors — how to maximize the opportunity, and what not to do. Smart cities are a market worth $84 billion CAGR 2020-2027. Growing population demands cities become more advanced. They are aligned to mega trends such as IoT, 5G, AI, climate change, etc.
Benson Chan, Senior Partner, Strategy of Thing and Renil Paramel, Senior Partner, Strategy of Thing, presented on smart cities. Smart cities and communities use sensing, networks, data, analytics, and algorithms to achieve key outcomes for residents, businesses, visitors, and government. Smart city use case examples include waste management, air quality, noise monitoring, traffic congestion, energy consumption, smart parking, smart traffic, smart streetlights, smart building management, structural health of public assets, etc. Smart cities create outcomes that people care about, such as government efficiency, sustainability, health and wellness, mobility, economic viability, public safety, resilience, etc. It takes an ecosystem to service a city.
There can be various types of smart regions. These can be state-level smart region initiatives, such as in Pennysylvania, USA, multi-state, multi-industry smart region initiative, in Greater Washington. There can also be multi-county, multi-smart region initiative, such as in two states – California, Nevada, and five counties — Placer County, El Dorado County, Washoe County, Carson City, and Douglas County. Yet another is the Cascadia Innovation Corridor in Vancouver, Seattle, and Portland.
Big opportunity awaits
Smart cities represent a big opportunity. However, there have been some recent pullbacks. Some examples: Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs pulled out of Toronto smart city project. Smart streetlights aren’t delivering the data boosters promised. Cisco pulled back from smart city project. There are many more. Smart cities realities are many. Some are: no funding, security, digital divide, lack of standards, lots of pilots, no vision and strategy, lack of digital skills, inadequate infrastructure, old policies, outdated processes, silos, long procurement cycles, low awareness, immature technology, and so on.
There are multiple smart city project funding sources, and the journey is also long. We need to understand city vision and plans in advance. An example is the San Mateo County, that looks at housing affordability, make transit accessible, reduce GHG, increase life expectancy, and an open, responsive, and effective government.
In pre-Covid-19 days, cities were focusing on mobility — smart parking, smart traffic and connected/AV initiatives, and sustainability — smart lighting, smart meters, EVs, as the two most popular use case categories among 28 cities reviewed. Then, pandemic shifted priorities. There are three themes for innovation — safety, resilient, and transformation. There are end-to-end smart city technology components, largely based on edge/fog, and cloud.
The Middlefield corridor is a lively street for North Fair Oaks residents. It is a safe, vibrant and friendly gathering place for the local community to come together to hang out with friends and family, shop, dine, and conduct business. Smart city technology, data, and innovation, will contribute to the sense of community, augment the resident and community user experience, and re-inforce outcomes desired by the community. Integrating technology will help realize the vision and experience. Target completion date is December 2022.
The definition of a smart city is evolving, and continues to do so. We need to prioritize “responsiveness” and outcomes, not technology, in smart cities. Smart cities are built by the “ecosystem”, not just cities. Smart city building is a marathon, not a sprint. Plan for the long term. Covid-19 has shifted smart city priorities. We also need to know the difference between the smart city technology providers.
Also, don’t assume everyone knows what a smart city is. Prioritize “responsiveness” and outcomes in smart cities. Don’t focus solely on cities. Opportunities abound in the “ecosystem”. Do understand how to partner with the smart city technology provider.
Smart infrastructure trends for traffic and mobility
Paul Jacobsen, McKinsey & Co., presented the smart infrastructure technology trends that are changing traffic and mobility, at the MEMS & Sensors Executive Congress (MSEC) 2021.
Cities account for 56 percent of global population, 80 percent of global GDP, and 70 percent of CO2 emissions. Transition to smart cities is a pivotal influence on global mobility, growth and climate outcomes. Actors use digital technology to solve public problems, and achieve higher quality of life. An intelligent layer supports enhanced decision making. Major cities, including New York and London, are investigating the potential.
Specific smart city solutions cut across four pillars. These are: building, city safety and transportation, health, food, and education, and infrastructure. Typical public outcomes sought from smart cities include an impact on quality of life, transportation access and quality, and city programs.
Highways could include intelligent traffic systems, and accommodate new modes of transport. Sensors and cameras can collect traffic conditions. Charging infrastructure can power electric vehicles. Vertiports integrate air taxis into the network. Shared mobility hubs incorporate ride-sharing platforms. Curbside monetization can flex use or space based on need. Dynamic road signage updating is based on road conditions. There is dynamic tolling setting demand-based prices.
Further, advanced pavement materials illuminate the roadway markings. Autonomous vehicle lanes can enable cars to travel in sequence. Predictive maintenance is done via drone monitoring. Connected vehicle technology can feed real-time data. Solar roadways generate electricity from heat. And, micro mobility options enhance the road network.
Many of these technologies are in place today. Features of smart roads include an intelligent transportation system (ITS), dynamic pricing, technology-enabled design, re-invention of mobility, and vehicle support infrastructure. Tolling, road-use charging and ITS potential US market size is estimated at $3 billion+ by 2025. Predictive roadways maintenance is estimated at potential $5 billion+ US market size by 2025. Curbside management systems is estimated at potential $2 billion+ US market size by 2025. Global electric vehicle charging potential is estimated at over $30 billion market size by 2030.
Smart parking garages could use technological solutions to integrate the digital and physical world. In public parking spaces, long-term curbside management ecosystem is evolving. These innovations support a projected growth in smart parking. Smart parking market is estimated to reach $17 billion by 2025. About $7B is expected parking management in 2027, up from $3 billion in 2018. 44 percent parking street space, besides sidewalks could be eliminated. There can be 15 percent increase in average occupancy rate with intelligent parking system. 16 percent penetration rate of smart parking spaces is expected by 2023.
There are eight trends to watch, going forward. These are: automation of payments, driving, etc., new modes of mobility, connectivity and digitization, electrification, recovery of public transit after Covid-19 pandemic, public revenue generation remains essential, challenges in resiliency and sustainability, and improvements to accessibility, affordability, and quality.
Smart city 3D sensing and sensor communications
SEMI, USA held a conference today on sensorization of smart cities: Smart city 3D sensing and sensor communications.
Lidar as key sensor
Dr. Mark McCord, CTO, Cepton Technologies, spoke about lidar as a key sensor for smart city infrastructure. Lidar or light detection and ranging is transforming the smart infrastructure. It is used for roads, tolling, and rail, as well as crowd analytics, security, and safety.
Cepton is deploying high-performance, mass-market lidar for safety and autonomy across multiple industries. Lidar uses lasers. Cepton uses 905 nm wavelength edge-emitting lasers, and uses direct time-of-flight approach. It uses micro-motion technology (MMT) for imaging. It has breakthrough MMT for lidar imaging. Cepton has automotive-grade and industrial-grade lidar sensors. It has the Helius smart lidar system. High-resolution lidar imaging is used for intelligent perception. We can add more intelligence to this.
He gave an example of smart cities use case with Alp.Lab. There is real-time 3D vehicle and pedestrian tracking. Another is at Orlando International Airport with Indoor Labs Safe Place platform. It is powering Synect’s Evenflow Crowd Radar media lights at the airport. Finally, there is Sora tolling use case with Redfox ID deployed on a major US highway. Sora allows vehicle profiling.
Smart city and IoT apps
Dr. Fikret Sivrikaya, Research Director, GT-ARC Technical University, Berlin, talked about sensor communications for smart city and IoT applications. You can equip anything with a computation unit, sensor, and a communication unit. Add some intelligent software! Eg., smart garbage collection is optimized and leads to less fuel consumption and reduced noise pollution.
Today, telecom has been connecting everything. The IoT device can be used in manufacturing machines, trash containers, etc. Smart city concept uses IoT technologies to improve the cities. The physical world is bridged with the digital world. IoT devices/sensors allow apps and data for more services. There are many app scenarios with highly varying communication needs. URLLC leads to critical IoT, and MMT communications leads to massive IoT.
There are many options for IoT connectivity that works over low-power WANs (LPWANs). There is also the LoRaWAN, and NB-IoT. LPWAN can also be used for massive IoT. LPWAN is on the rise for IoT. LoRa and NB-IoT have larger market share. LoRa ((long range), is a low-power, wide area physical-layer networking protocol for IoT. LoRaWan is based on LoRa, and helps realize large-scale IoT apps. It uses unlicensed frequency bands within 433-915MHz range at 125/250 KHz channels. Various ISM bands are available for LoRa. LoRaWAN packets from an end node are received and forwarded by all gateways in range.
There is also narrowband IoT (NB-IoT). It builds on the LTE ecosystem amd can be deployed as simple software addition. LoRaWAN and NB-IoT are the two prominent standards in use.
Paul Carey, Director, MEMS and Sensors Industry Group, SEMI, was the moderator.
Understanding smart cities and role sensors play
MEMS & Sensors Industry Group (MSIG), SEMI, USA, recently organized a webinar on understanding smart cities and the role sensors play.
The speakers were Ms. Karen Lightman, Executive Director, Metro21 Smart Cities Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, and Sameer Sharma, Global GM, Smart Cities & Transportation for IoT Solutions, Intel. Paul Carey, MSIG Director, was the moderator.
MSIG’s goals are to serve the entire MEMS and sensor supply chain, and expand market and global presences by leveraging SEMI’s global reach. MSIG has started a Sensors Solutions Partnership program in 2021 aiming to:
- Establish better relationships between OEMs and sensor companies.
- Enabling discussion on value to products and sensor supply chain.
- Work together on non-differentiating items and standardization.
- Develop new and valuable opportunities.
Smart cities have an estimated total market size of $84 billion. They are estimated to grow 24.7 percent CAGR 2020-2027. Growing population demands cities become more advanced. They must support more people safely and efficiently. Resource optimization is critical. They must be aligned to mega trends, such as IoT, 5G, AI, climate change, etc.
R&D projects funded by Congress through SEMI/ARL in 2020 were $7 million awarded for positioning, navigation and timing (PNT). Funding is cost-shared up to 50 percent. The funding roadmap for fall 2021 is $5 million additional PNT-related funding awarded for a follow-on PNT program. In 2022, $10 million has been proposed for “Sensors to fight Pandemics”.
Ms. Karen Lightman presented on enabling connected, resilient, equitable, and sustainable communities through sensors.
Sameer Sharma presented on how sensing and insights are paving the path. Today, cities and transportation systems must be efficient and effective. More opportunity, access to education, and better healthcare, are realizing the dream of cities. Growth brings challenges, such as congestion, safety, and environment. There is also the pandemic. Hence, resilience is critical.
Looking at the global cities and transportation landscape, there are 33 mega cities, over 4,000 cities with 100K+ population. There are 2.5 million towns. There is an unprecedented data growth. AI makes new experiences possible. Over 107ZB of data will be created, captured, copied, and consumed in cities by 2026. There are multiple sources of smart city data. These include infrastructure 24 percent, public services 26 percent, buildings 22 percent, transportation 15 percent, and utilities 13 percent.
Legacy approaches cannot scale for smart cities and transportation. Here, 5G comes in. Disruptive technology makes it possible. Here, IoT comes in. Digital technologies overlay our physical world. Today, there are technology-based solutions to enable smarter spaces. Digital can help make air travel safer.
Intel has a smart city vision built around policy, governance, and financing, for citizen benefits. It takes a village, partnering across the industry. When resilience is critical, technology helps.
MEMS & Sensors Executive Congress (MSEC) 2021 will be held October 11-13, 2021, at the Marriott Coronado Island, San Diego, CA, USA. It is designed for senior executives across the MEMS and sensors supply chain and adjacent industries.
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