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There are growing interests on the future changes by automobiles, spanning from 'connected car', an IT convergence which keeps evolving, to the future cars like electric cars and autonomous cars. These changes are having great influence on our lives, guiding us to the more efficient and pleasant lives by reducing travel time and improving safety. Such comfortable life is coming faster through smart city, a combination of IoT and city
Smart city comes from IoT (Internet of Things)
There comes the age of IoT (Internet of Things) where all the things we use are connected to the network to gather data of the usage pattern of things and to share again those data with other things. In smart home, for example, Information of every household device such as TV remote control, kitchen table, refrigerator and heater are shared by network, and by means of analyzing that information, user-specific service will be provided.
Smart city is a city-wide expansion of the concept above, connecting the whole city and sharing all kinds of information of the city. And this is where IoT can play an important role to gather all pieces of information from the every corner of the city
The ultimate goal of smart city is to build an infrastructure that enables us to consume energy in the most effective way and to live our life in a safe, efficient environment. When a smart city is built, all kinds of behavioral information like traffic and energy usage are going to be organized into data, based on which various services can be provided to make our life convenient. This is the key element to build a comfortable environment that is consistently improving in the future.
Smart city for driverless electric cars
In February, a driving test of autonomous car, running with only camera and sensors on a general road, was performed in England, where the government provides active support for autonomous cars, like establishing legal measures for them to run on the road. Beside England, Germany, Japan and Singapore are also having road test for autonomous cars, restrictively though.
But in reality, there exist a lot of obstacles for autonomous cars to run on the general road, such as unpredictable driving condition and rapid change in weather. It would be an ideal case if an autonomous car alone would be able to deal with. For the highest level of safety, however, we need 'autonomous road', a road supplemented with functionalities for autonomous driving
On an autonomous road, a road itself will be functioning as a sensor and a high-tech control system, communicating with cars on the road real-time to help them drive safely. Moreover, roads with wireless charging system would make it possible that cars on the road charge their battery while driving at the same time.
In fact, it has been more than one year since a wireless charging electric bus, which is charged by wireless charging system both under the road and beneath the bus. It is considered an innovative approach to charge wirelessly by using the road not by plugging in to the outlet, attracting the world's interests.
We believe that such a smart road for autonomous cars and electric cars will be an important part of the future smart city
Urban changes in the near future
In March 2015, Bristol, England has set out to establish a smart city. It includes software and infrastructure that make intelligent street lamp, parking sensor, weather and other components to be connected to the sensors of the smart city by means of high-performance wireless network. And those data acquired from the network is going to be used in order to manage the hardware and to provide services back to the IoT platform. Starting with the city of Bristol, England plans to expand its smart city to the areas of North Somerset and Bath over the three coming years
Dallas, Texas also launched a project for traffic management system to deal with traffic accident and other unpredictable circumstances. It is expected that the roads become less crowded, energy is less consumed and convenience facilities for the aged and the handicapped are improved,
Smart city is just before our eyes, not a distant
future, and IoT makes it draw nearer to us
If efficient energy management systems and wireless charging roads are spread, would it become possible that we store off-peak electricity at night in ESS (Energy Storage System) and charge our car during the daytime?
Sustainable life and convenience, we hope that smart city is offering the way to achieve the both of values at the same time.