Skyline of Songdo from Songdo Central Park. Songdo was designed to eliminate the use of cars and to encourage residents to walk. – Photo by Alfonsojung
THE idea behind smart cities is simple. Ultimately, everything is connected to make your life easier.
Your rubbish bin will let the city council know when it needs to be emptied, your fridge will order your groceries for you, the traffic lights will adjust according to the city’s needs.
It’s an ultimate on-demand economy fuelled by sensors and artificial intelligence. It can have a positive environmental impact, as it focuses on making things as efficient as possible and reducing waste. Street lights could be dimmed when not in use.
It sounds ideal, technology or the Internet of Things (IoT) enriching our lives and leaving us free to pursue other interests. Especially when IoT makes city infrastructure function smoothly and seamlessly.
This is an important development as the United Nations estimates that by 2050, around 66 per cent of the world’s population will be living in cities.
Existing smart cities
Two well-known examples of smart cities are Songdo in South Korea and Masdar in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Songdo was designed to eliminate the use of cars and to encourage residents to walk. An underground waste management system means no trash trucks need to drive around.
Despite it all, only 70,000 people work in Songdo, less than a third of what the government had envisioned.
One drawback the residents say is that Songdo feels very isolated. It takes over an hour to get to Seoul.
The same problem haunts Masdar in the UAE. It is a good 16km away from Abu Dhabi with no public transport, so it remains severely underpopulated.
“This has been the practice so far when we talk about smart cities. It’s usually implemented in new suburbs as it’s easier to build and implement the technology, but it functions in a bubble and becomes a rich ghetto of sorts,” explained Swinburne Sarawak director of research Assoc Prof Wallace Wong.
“But smart cities are democratic in nature. If a city is truly smart, it offers the same services to everyone regardless of your postcode.”
Korea Association of Smart Home convergence standard division manager Lee Kwang-Jo shows the smart fridge at the lab.
Assoc Prof Patrick Then
Smart systems and solutions
Swinburne Sarawak’s Centre for Digital Futures is looking into building smart systems and solutions for Kuching.
“Building smart cities is very much in its infancy now. Something truly becomes smart when the artificial intelligence can think out various scenarios and take the best course of action or can problem-solve,” explained Swinburne Sarawak Centre for Digital Futures director Assoc Prof Patrick Then.
“So it needs two levels of development, the hardware – a network of sensors and receivers, and the software – which can make decisions.”
The technology of having mini sensors already exists, and software, which is capable of problem-solving, can be developed. The biggest issue when making anything smart in a city is integrating the two levels of hardware and software.
Starting with a blank canvas is easier, but this becomes much harder in an existing city as the infrastructure already exists and different systems have to talk to each other.
Photo shows a smart fridge.
Stumbling blocks
A sensor in your fridge can already detect which food item you are running low on, but it needs to unlock your iPad or computer, and the supermarket closest to you needs to accept the payment method. Or perhaps your fridge needs to be able to order from different shops. This is a good example of the biggest stumbling block as to why the full extent of IoT is far from realised.
It needs a seamless base upon which it can operate. And most cities started out as planned visions, but as needs grew, avenues and side streets were added with time.
As different systems were used, it is very complex to make it into one whole. That’s also the reason why developers or city planners only build smart suburbs where they have a blank canvas to work with.
Machines for the rubbish removal system in Songdo allow waste to be transported using a vacuum-powered system.
Assoc Prof Wallace Wong
Hardware infrastructure
A new project being discussed brings the top universities in Sarawak to build the hardware infrastructure in an existing city. This collaborative project will also see the universities pooling their expertise to complement each other.
In simple terms what they would be building is an IoT gateway, but using low-cost, off-the shelf components.
“We are not building a new IoT system in isolation,” Then explained.
“Together with Assoc Prof Wallace Wong, we were invited to visit the K-ICT IoT open lab in Guro, Korea to start a dialogue, and see the challenges they faced. This lab is an initiative of the Korean government, where all the parties and companies involved in city infrastructure and consumer products come together to adapt and change, for smart living. To see if your fridge can actually order your groceries.”
Guro has transformed itself from a primarily textile manufacturing economy to high-tech knowledge and information industry with more than 80 per cent of the companies being IT companies. The fact that it hosts the IoT open lab says enough.
Kuching and Guro signed a memorandum of understanding in 2016 to work closely in areas of health and education, as well as to exchange knowledge and expertise.
But what sets the project in Sarawak apart, and why would they succeed where others have tried before?
“We are limiting ourselves to a 15km-radius. This gives us obvious advantages, the battery in the sensor can have a longer life, can be smaller and we apply the IoT infrastructure piecemeal,” said Then.
Photo shows the interface of the smart rubbish collection developed by Swinburne students.
Three applications
The three applications they are currently exploring are in smart traffic monitoring, waste management and electricity consumption.
Swinburne students have successfully developed a prototype rubbish bin and the interface for the collectors. Like in any working relationship, communication is key and the rubbish bin will let the municipal collector know when it needs to be emptied.
At the moment; it is a system of sensors and receivers. It becomes smart when the software can analyse the data and can predict on which day your bin will be full.
“This Sarawak university collaboration is more like testing the soil before building, but a very vital first step in making the infrastructure smart. There is a lot of speculation about how cities of the future will look. Will IoT help cities become more green or will it go towards the fictionalised dystopian future painted in movies like ‘Blade Runner’.
“There is no crystal ball we can look into, but for now, we can streamline some of the basic services vital to a city,” added Then.