ECE welcomed guest lecturer Professor Shaidehpour to speak on Smart Cities for Global Sustainability Sept 14, 2017
A smart city will offer an integrated solution for managing a region’s large and interdependent infrastructures including the electricity grid, natural gas supply system, telecommunication system, urban traffic and congestion management, smart vehicles including EVs, buses and urban trains, water supply system, wastewater management, urban farming, smart street lights, municipal government system including urban security (physical/cyber) and public works. A smart city solution will enhance the efficiency of public services, meet city resident’s critical needs, improve the quality of life, and promote the global sustainability. Accordingly, a smart city will be more prepared to respond to everyday challenges than a traditional monitoring system which considers a simple transactional relationship with individual citizens. A smart city is an urban development for integrating multiple information and communication technology (ICT) and Internet of things (IoT) solutions in a secure fashion. The integrated smart city solution will enhance the performance and the interactivity of urban services, reduce costs, manage resource consumptions, and will ultimately improve security, reliability, resilience, and sustainability in large metropolitan regions. The integrated solution will allow smart city officials to interact directly with community members and those in charge of critical infrastructures, in order to manage what is happening in the city, how the city functions are evolving, and how the city can enable a better quality of life in normal and stressed conditions. The information gathered through the use of smart sensors, that are integrated with real-time monitoring systems, is the key for mitigating inefficiencies in smart cities. The pertinent city data are collected, processed and then analyzed with the goal of improving the management of urban flows and allowing for real-time responses to unforeseen challenges. This presentation will introduce the components and the structures embedded in smart cities and discuss the benefits and the predicaments of implementing smart cities for promoting the global sustainability. An overview of a campus microgrid established at the IIT campus will also be presented.