Wrocław the smart(est) city
Thaumatec has a strong partnership with top-class universities like Wrocław University of Technology and Science and the most respected business networks like DSP Valley from the Netherlands. In cooperation with researchers from Wroclaw University of Technology and Wroclaw Academic Hub, Thaumatec is working on providing LoRa network infrastructure in Wrocław and enhancing LoRa technology with useful localization capabilities.
What is a smart city?
It’s not surprising that on the lists of “top 10 best smart cities” we can find mostly the biggest ones. Big, modern cities can have really big problems – traffic, waste management, high costs of electricity. But technology is giving us also some modern solutions.
In the top three we can find New York city with their Automated Meter Reading system who measure water consumption. Paris is also a perfect smart city example – city is developing a Grand Paris Express which will feature 127 miles of fully-automated metro lines and 68 new stations.
Also Tokio, as the organizer of the Olympic games will use the face recognition technology for the highest security standards and a system of driverless taxis to improve transport.
Smart cities – best examples
It’s not surprising that on the lists of “top 10 best smart cities” we can find mostly the biggest ones. Big, modern cities can have really big problems – traffic, waste management, high costs of electricity. But technology is giving us also some modern solutions.
In the top three we can find New York city with their Automated Meter Reading system who measure water consumption. Paris is also a perfect smart city example – city is developing a Grand Paris Express which will feature 127 miles of fully-automated metro lines and 68 new stations.
Also Tokio, as the organizer of the Olympic games will use the face recognition technology for the highest security standards and a system of driverless taxis to improve transport.
Smart cities and Internet of Things
The concept of a smart city is based on connecting different Internet of Things devices. Thanks to the newest technologies in connectivity (like LoRa or NB-IoT) we can put many low energy devices in one, big, smart city network. Usually, devices based on this technology can work for a very long time (even years) sending small packages of data to the long range.
How we helped to develop smart city in Wrocław?
Wrocław is one of the biggest and fastest-growing cities in Poland – full of young, dynamic people who love using modern technology in their everyday life. In cooperation with researchers from Wroclaw University of Technology and Wroclaw Academic Hub, Thaumatec is working on providing LoRa network infrastructure in Wrocław and enhancing LoRa technology with useful smart city features. This alliance of research and technology integration skills allowed to develop a complete solution with the potential to provide low-cost localization solutions for smart city IoT applications.
IoT applications have a great potential for improving the quality of life in smart city centres. However, connecting thousands of devices to the Internet is not an easy task. For instance, most GSM-based devices can operate on battery only for a limited time, GPS localisation fails in buildings and Bluetooth has a relatively short communication range. New LPWAN radio technologies such as LoRa are ideal for connecting sensors to the Internet. Firstly, we created a map of the city and identified the potential pain points.
Later, together with the city council, we found the three best places for Kerlink gateway stations, to provide the best possible range. Based on this structure (a part of TTN networks), we started to create different solutions to improve the processes in the city.
What is important for us, that the network can be used for free by the city, universities and normal people. Based on our local network, students of Politechnika Wrocławska developed the projects of smart trash bin – it is sending a notification when it’s a full and very good project of mobile, weatherproof LoRa gateway.
How Wrocław became the smartest city in the world?
According to the IESE Cities in Motion Index 2019 report, Wroclaw ranks to be in the top 100 list of Smartest-Cities in the world. We are very proud of our city’s recognition, #95 in the rank, however, we are even prouder that our services and technology have made a small contribution to Wroclaw’s success!
