Merging the Digital and Virtual Worlds | Product Design and Development - 0 views
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Putting sensors and actuators in everything from homes and cars to shoes and coffee cups promises to make our daily lives easier, safer and more efficient. But such 'ambient intelligence' requires a merger of the virtual and digital worlds. EU-funded researchers in the Sensei project are bridging the gap and their results are already leading to 'smart cities' being set up all over Europe.
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'Today, the internet world is a virtual world of data mostly stored and accessed from servers,' says Dr Hérault. In the future, we will have an 'Internet of things' in which a multitude of things in the real, physical world will be digitised continuously: in many situations, we won't just be asking web servers for data, we will be asking sensors in everyday objects for data, he suggests. 'We need to understand how best to interconnect the real world and the virtual world.'
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An open service interface that uses semantic information to process data means that information is accessible and understandable to both humans and machines. 'You could ask, for example, "What is the temperature on Oxford Street?" The system would decode that semantic information, access sensor networks on Oxford Street that have temperature sensors, check the reliability of each network with regard to information quality, and return an answer,' Dr Hérault explains.
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Within the Sensei architecture, each sensor and actuator network is conceived as an 'island' that, through an interface middleware, can be connected to the overall system and can publish data independently of the technologies they are using or the type of information involved. An island could be a home, a bus station, a car or your own personal network of smart clothing and mobile devices. From a privacy and security perspective, each user is able to control which type of information they wish to share and with whom.
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'If we are going to deploy billions of wirelessly interconnected sensors and actuators, the impact in terms of energy consumption and carbon footprint could become very significant. It is thus very important to develop sensors and actuators able to scavenge energy from their environment and communicate with ultra-low power energy consumption,' Dr Hérault says.
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Efficient sensors, operating within the Sensei architecture and coupled with technology developed in a parallel EU-funded project 'Wireless sensor network testbeds' (Wisebed), are already in the process of making their real world debut. As part of the 'SmartSantander' initiative, a follow-up project to Sensei, 12,000 devices are being deployed in the northern Spanish city of Santander over the coming year. In a first implementation they will be used to monitor available parking places and inform drivers about where there is space available, helping to smooth the flow of traffic in the city and reduce pollution.
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In this project, sensor and actuator networks will be set up in Santander to provide smart street lighting, dimming the lights to save energy when there is no one on the street, for example, and turning them up if some kind of incident or increased activity is detected. In Aarhus, the main focus will be to collect data about the water and sewage infrastructure, shape the information and use it in an intelligent and autonomous way. In Berlin, partners are working on the development of 'intelligent waste baskets' in order to optimise waste management. The Trento partners, meanwhile, are focusing on the development of intelligent water management in order to improve the utilisation of water for both drinking and energy generation in mountain areas. In Birmingham, transport infrastructure and services, including trams, buses, roads, cycle paths and walkways, will be optimised leading to streamlined transitions between modes, time saving and greater efficiency across the board.