In these days, in our industry, two words have the highest exposure rate. One is 5G, and the other is smart city.
The Internet of Things, cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, these new concepts have emerged one after another, promoting the entire society to accelerate toward informatization, digitization, and intelligence.
Big bosses from all walks of life are keeping a close eye on technological trends, hoping to take the lead in introducing technology, improving production efficiency, and realizing digital transformation.
As a result, various hotspot terms have emerged one after another, such as 5G smart factory, 5G smart park, 5G smart agriculture, 5G smart shopping malls, and so on.
The smart city originated in the media field, which refers to the use of various information technologies or innovative concepts to open up and integrate the city’s systems and services to improve the efficiency of resource utilization, optimize city management and services, and improve the quality of life of citizens.
1.What are smart cities?
Smart cities in a broad sense cover a wide range.
It includes different industries and fields, including individuals, enterprises, and governments.
Smart city in a narrow sense refers specifically to urban management, which is the field related to government functions. Such as public safety, emergency management, municipal facilities, environmental governance, and people’s livelihood services.
A smart city in a narrow sense should be a truly smart city.
A smart city is an advanced form of urban informatization based on the next-generation innovation (Innovation 2.0) of the knowledge society by fully applying the new generation of information technology in all walks of life in the city. It realizes the in-depth integration of informatization, industrialization, and urbanization, and helps to alleviate the big cities. Diseases, improve the quality of urbanization, realize refined and dynamic management, and enhance the effectiveness of urban management and improve the quality of life of citizens.
The background of smart cities
From the perspective of technological development, the construction of smart cities requires the realization of comprehensive perception, ubiquitous interconnection, pervasive computing, and integrated applications through the Internet of Things, cloud computing, and other new-generation information technology applications represented by mobile technology.
From the perspective of social development, smart cities also require the realization of sustainable innovation through the application of tools and methods such as wikis, social networks, Fab Lab, Living Lab, and comprehensive integration methods, emphasizing comprehensive sustainable development through value creation.
In 2010, IBM formally put forward the vision of a smart city, hoping to contribute its own strength to the development of cities in the world and China. After research, IBM believes that a city is composed of six core systems of different types of networks, infrastructure, and environment related to the main functions of the city. Organizations (people), business/government, transportation, communications, water, and energy.
2.Factors in the formation of smart cities
Two genes of smart city
There are two driving forces to promote the gradual formation of smart cities. One is a new generation of information technology represented by the Internet of Things, cloud computing, and mobile Internet, and the other is an open urban innovation ecology that is gradually nurtured in a knowledge-based society.
The former is a technical factor at the level of technological innovation, and the latter is a socio-economic factor at the level of social innovation. From this, we can see the driving role of innovation in the development of smart cities. The new generation of information technology and innovation 2.0 are the two genes of a smart city, and neither is indispensable.
Smart cities not only need the support of next-generation information technologies such as the Internet of Things and cloud computing but also foster the next generation of innovation (Innovation 2.0) for the knowledge society.
The integration and development of information and communication technologies have dispelled the barriers to information and knowledge sharing, dissolved the boundaries of innovation, promoted the formation of the innovation 2.0 form, and further promoted the dissolution of the boundaries of various social organizations and activities.
The transformation of the innovative form from the production paradigm to the service paradigm has also led to the transformation of the industrial form, government management form, and urban form from the production paradigm to the service paradigm.
3.Technical Architecture of Smart City
A smart city is actually a branch of the vertical application of wisdom in hundreds of industries. In essence, it is an ICT project. Therefore, it, like most ICT projects, conforms to the basic architecture of the cloud pipe end.
In the architecture, the lowest layer is the terminal layer (Internet of Things devices) for data collection, information perception, and command execution. Then, up there are communication channels (fixed or mobile communication technology, public or private networks). The data is sent to the platform layer (now generally cloud computing platforms), and the platform layer calculates and stores the data. Finally, various applications and services call data and provide services through the open portal of the platform.
Introducing AI at the platform layer for big data analysis and machine learning, then the ICT system (digital system) becomes a smart system. The digital information city has become a smart city.
4. Ecological chain of smart city
For the government, a smart city is a demand. For companies in the ICT industry, a smart city is a profitable business. For these companies, we can collectively call them smart city service providers.
The service category can be divided into hardware service providers, software service providers, security service providers, operation and maintenance service providers, system integrators, etc. The service area can be divided into comprehensive solution providers and professional service providers. C&T RF Antennas Inc is an antenna design and antenna production service provider.
5. Global Smart Cities
In November 2008, at the Foreign Relations Council in New York, IBM put forward the concept of smart earth, which in turn triggered a wave of smart city construction.
The European Union launched the European Living Lab organization in 2006. It uses new tools and methods, and advanced information and communication technologies to mobilize collective wisdom and creativity and provide opportunities for solving social problems. The organization also launched the European Smart City Network. Living Lab is completely user-centric and helps residents improve the quality of life with information technology and mobile application services through the creation of an open and innovative space, so that people’s needs can be respected and met to the utmost.
In 2009, Dubuque cooperated with IBM to establish the first smart city in the United States. Using the Internet of Things technology to connect various urban public resources (water, electricity, oil, gas, transportation, public services, etc.) in a community of 60,000 residents, monitor, analyze and integrate various data to make Intelligent response, better service to citizens.
The first step in Dubuque is to install digitally controlled water and electricity meters to all households and shops, which include low-flow sensor technology to prevent waste caused by water and electricity leakage.
At the same time, a comprehensive monitoring platform is built to analyze, integrate and display data in a timely manner, so that the use of resources in the entire city is clear at a glance. More importantly, Dubuque publishes this information to individuals and businesses, so that they have a clearer understanding of their energy consumption and a greater sense of responsibility for sustainable development.
South Korea is building a green, digital, and seamless mobile connection ecological and smart city based on the Internet. Through the integration of public communication platforms and ubiquitous network access, consumers can conveniently carry out distance education, medical treatment, taxation, and realize intelligent monitoring of household building energy consumption.
Singapore launched the Smart Nation 2015 plan in 2006 to build Singapore into an international city for economic and social development through the active application of a new generation of information technology such as the Internet of Things.
In terms of e-government, serving the people’s livelihood, and ubiquitous interconnection, Singapore has achieved remarkable results. Among them, the intelligent transportation system provides real-time and appropriate traffic information for citizens to travel through various sensor data, operation information, and a rich user interaction experience.
The Fab Lab (micro-assembly laboratory) initiated by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Bit and Atom Research Center is based on the development of social technology from personal communication to personal computing to personal manufacturing, trying to build user-centric and application-oriented user innovation manufacturing. The environment allows people to design and manufacture products as they want, even in their own homes. The practice of Barcelona and other cities from Fab Lab to Fab City interprets the connotation of people-oriented sustainable innovation in smart cities from another perspective.
Smart cities in Europe pay more attention to the role of information and communication technology in urban ecological environment, transportation, medical care, smart buildings, and other livelihood fields, and hope to use knowledge sharing and low-carbon strategies to achieve emission reduction targets and promote low-carbon, green and sustainable cities Develop, invest in the construction of smart cities, develop low-carbon housing, smart transportation, smart grids, improve energy efficiency, cope with climate change, and build green smart cities.
Denmark’s construction of the smart city Copenhagen (Copenhagen) aspires to become the first carbon-neutral city by 2025. To achieve this goal, mainly rely on the municipal climate action plan to initiate 50 initiatives to achieve its mid-term goal of reducing carbon by 20% in 2015.
Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, was assessed as the European Green Capital by the European Commission in 2010; in the PricewaterhouseCoopers 2012 Smart City Report, Stockholm ranked fifth and ranked first in smart capital and innovation, safety, health, and security. , The livability and sustainability of the population are also among the best.
The information revolution is the most important feature of world development since the 1980s. It has greatly promoted the development process of the human economy, society, politics, military, and other aspects innovated the development model and improved the quality of development.
The combination of a new generation of the Internet, cloud computing, intelligent sensing, communication, remote sensing, satellite positioning, geographic information system and other technologies will enable the intelligent identification, positioning, tracking, monitoring, and management of all items, so as to make the earth smart The state of the art makes it technically possible to build smart earth.
The development of the new generation of information technology has made it a reality to further realize the intelligentization of urban forms on the basis of digitalization. Relying on the Internet of Things can realize intelligent perception, identification, positioning, tracking, and supervision; with the help of cloud computing and intelligent analysis technology, a large amount of information processing and decision support can be realized.
Research institutes define a smart city as the application of intelligent computing technology to make the key infrastructure components and services composed of cities such as urban management, education, medical care, real estate, transportation, public utilities, and public safety more interconnected, efficient, and intelligent.
Smart cities not only widely adopt technical tools such as the Internet of Things, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, data mining, knowledge management, and social networks but also focus on user participation.
6. Smart cities application
Smart city application systems include smart logistics systems, smart manufacturing systems, smart trade systems, smart energy application systems, smart public services, smart social management systems, smart transportation systems, smart health protection systems, smart settlement service systems, and smart cultural service systems.
7. 4G 5G helps smart cities
TD-LTE technology is dominated by China, and its theoretical transmission rate can reach 100Mbps in downlink and 50Mbps in the uplink, which is dozens of times the speed of 3G networks. 5G technology will be about 100 times faster than existing 4G networks, and provide lower latency when sending and receiving data in real time.
Compared with current networks, the additional functions of handling more connected devices will provide support for artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, unlocking the potential of smart cities and the Internet of Things (IoT).
The development of smart cities is inseparable from the application of various new technologies and new models. Mobile Internet, cloud computing, the Internet of Things, and big data play a powerful role in promoting the field of smart cities.
8. Smart Cities and Agriculture
Smart agriculture is the full application of modern information technology achievements, integrated application of computer and network technology, Internet of Things technology, audio and video technology, sensor technology, wireless communication technology, and expert wisdom and knowledge platform to realize agricultural visualized remote diagnosis, remote control, disaster warning, etc.
Intelligent management, remote diagnosis and communication, remote consultation, remote consultation, and gradually establish a visual communication and application mode of agricultural information services.
9. The future of smart cities
A smart city is the product of the development of urban informatization to a certain stage. With the powerful driving force of new-generation information technology such as big data, cloud computing, Internet of Things, geographic information, and mobile Internet, it develops smart applications and establishes a set of new and sustainable The development model of the city in order to outline a blueprint for a future smart city.
At present, China’s smart city construction has gradually stepped onto the right track. China vigorously promotes new infrastructure construction strategies and speeds up the planning of digital construction, which will promote smart cities.
In the future, there will be more and more investment in smart cities, and there will be more and more projects.
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