San Diego, supported by commercial partners including Current, powered by GE, is working on a city-wide deployment of intelligent connected sensor nodes on street light poles, explains Maury Wright, and the anonymized data will be available to local organizations as well as to city government.
The city of San Diego, CA is currently deploying what is arguably the largest smart city and Internet of Things (IoT) project yet to be undertaken globally by a municipality. Already the city has deployed 2000 smart nodes based on technology from Current, powered by GE and Intel, and the size of the network should double by mid-2019. Some of the software and applications might still be described as trials or prototypes, but the project is a full-fledged, city-wide deployment with the nodes mounted on selected LED street light poles (Fig. 1) upon which the city had previously installed solid-state lighting (SSL) with integrated wireless connectivity. The new smart nodes include cameras and other sensors, connected via high-speed cellular technology, that are capturing anonymized data which the city will use to better serve citizens and visitors. That data will also be available to organizations and businesses located in San Diego.
Before we dive into what the connected system can do for the city, let`s consider the statement characterizing the San Diego project as the largest smart city project in the world. It`s a hard claim to prove or disprove. There are far broader deployments of smart street lights that use connectivity to control lights (on, off, and dim level) programmatically or autonomously to optimize energy savings, thereby reducing costs. Likewise, such systems can streamline maintenance, again reducing costs. Los Angeles has installed more than 100,000 street lights, with a large number connected via Signify (formerly Philips Lighting) technology. The greater Miami area has an even larger connected portfolio, although fewer of the lights have been retrofitted to LED sources.
The difference in the case of San Diego is the complexity and capability of the smart nodes that Current calls CityIQ. We covered that technology related to a trial project in Portland in the summer of 2018. The nodes are supported by the partnership of Current, Intel, and AT&T Wireless. Intel supplies the microprocessor and IoT stack. AT&T handles the wireless connectivity. And Current designed the nodes, developed the cloud control and storage, and manages the system operation as a service.
The nodes include sensors that can detect things like air quality, temperature, wind speed, and more alongside forward- and rear-facing video cameras. Unlike the Portland project, the San Diego project was launched with a city-wide scope. Erik Caldwell, San Diego deputy chief operating officer for smart sustainable communities, said that 2000 nodes of an initially planned 3300 nodes have been installed. Areas of the city south of Freeway 52 have the lights installed. After the initial launch, the city subsequently added plans for another 1000 nodes. So the remaining 1300 nodes from the original contract and the additional 1000 will be installed by mid-year, according to Caldwell.
Now there remains a difference between a street light network such as the one in Los Angeles and a smart city network such as the new one in San Diego. San Diego actually has both. The CityIQ nodes in San Diego are installed on street light poles but are connected via the aforementioned cellular link. Meanwhile, San Diego has deployed 14,000 street lights that are connected with Current LightGrid mesh-networking technology. The CityIQ nodes are installed on select poles in San Diego adjacent to the LED luminaires but don`t directly rely on or interact with the luminaires. Rather, the CityIQ nodes just rely on the street light pole for mounting height and electrical power.
The prevailing wisdom has been that municipalities would install connected LED street lights, investing the money into connectivity and controls to maximize energy savings. Having invested that money, the municipality could then layer on other smart city applications. And certainly some cities are following that roadmap with connected luminaires capable of providing some level of traffic monitoring or environmental monitoring. The video capabilities in the San Diego network, however, would need a higher-speed wireless link than a technology such as LightGrid could offer; 4G mobile networks offer the needed bandwidth and emerging 5G systems will be even better.
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