Notes from Meetup #17: Looking to the Future
SmartSheffield returned from a long Covid-19 hiatus on December the 7th to catch up with the most significant smart city projects in play across the city, and see if we could recreate the convivial atmosphere of our face to face meetups even though we're all remote and online. In order to do this, we used the conferencing platform AirMeet for the first time, as it has networking features as well as video presentation, allowing participants to sit at virtual tables in the "Social Lounge" to chat when there are no speakers on stage.
There were a few connectivity hiccups and quite a lot of browser refreshing to get it to work for everyone, but it all went off without any major hitches and we managged to get all 7 talks done in an hour and 20 minutes, which was more content than we originally intended, but well worth it and certainly appropaite seeing as we haven't been able to run an event since the beginning of last March!
All the videos from the sessions are below - apologies for the video quality, Airmeet very generously allows full use of the platform for up to 100 partipants for free however the recordings are standard definition only and therefore not the high quality productions we're so used to (joke). That said though, the video is perfectly fine to follow the talks and understand what's going on, and I've included contact details for the speakers if you would like to get more information about anything that wasn't clear in the talk.
We're aiming to host another meetup on Airmeet in February, probably on waste and the district heating network, so please get in touch if you have any feedback, news you would like us to share or a topic you want to present at a future meetup. Email me at info@smartsheffield.city, or get in touch via Twitter @SmartSheffield.
Thanks once again to our sponsors at Arup, Pitch-In, Creative Space Management and Sheffield Digital, as well as all the speakers!
We hope to see you at the next event!
Chris Dymond (Unfolding and Sheffield Digital)
Andy Saunders from IoT Tribe: IoT Tribe North #3
Andy Saunders is Head of Partnerships at IoT Tribe.
The global accelerator of disruptive digital technologies is about to kick off it's third IoT North programme, based out of the Digital Media Centre in Barnsley.
Andy describes IoT Tribe's global accelerator programmes in Madrid and Singapore, and then introduces the latest IoT Tribe North programme, which is focusing on "connected places" - the built environment, smart buildings and smart places.
They are currently looking to attract startups operating in this space from all over the world, and even though it will be delivered virtually due to covid-19, there is a strong focus on Barnsley and South Yorkshire as a hub of this activity and, as Andy explains, there are a number of advantages that come with operating remotely.
The programme starts with a "design studio" in which up to 30 startups will develop concepts with a view to being accepted onto the second and third stages of the programme.
If you're interested in taking part in the programme, do get in touch with Andy at andy@iottribe.org
Martin Mayfield from the Urban Flows Observatory: Update on the Programme
Martin is Professor of Engineering Design at the University of Sheffield and Director of the Urban Flows Observatory.
The observatory was set up several years ago in order to quantify Sheffield's consumption of energy and resources, and understand how this impacts on the environment - to model the city's urban metabolism in order to use the insights derived from this to drive local and national decision making in order to deliver a "circular economy", i.e. an economy in which there are fewer negative consequences to the environment and the health and wellbeing of citizens.
At the heart of this is a soon to be relaunched website which will provide public access to the data and the insights derived. In addition they have built a virtual reality platform, in conjunction with Sheffield VR visualisation company Slanted Theory.
Monitoring is done via fixed sensors along with two electric vans (MARVEL and MOBIUS) which are decked out with a raft of sensors including lidar and thermal cameras, and act as mobile platforms for targeted data gathering.
In order to locate and visualise this data, the observatory is working with Mott Macdonald to build a platform upon which modelling software can be mounted and connected, with the intention that this architecture avoids committing to a single monolithic "digital twin" of Sheffield which will necessarily constrain future analysis.
Martin also lays out the future of the observatory's activities, including working with regional and local authorities to develop integrated municipal data platforms, the launch of Sheffield Air which brings air quality research and mitigation together across the city, assisting Sheffield City Region with their decarbonisation roadmap, and ingesting Sheffield city council's traffic data into the observatory.
Steve Jubb from the Urban Flows Observatory: Update on Antennas
Steve Jubb is the technical director of the Urban Flows Observatory, and here describes the current network implementation of the observatory, and the plans that are in the process of being rolled out.
His key objectives are to model and map the radio frequency networks that are being used; build a reliable and open access LoRaWAN gateway infrastructure for the city; and map the coverage across the city region.
To help them do this, they have built a third vehicle: MORCA - MObile Radio CAtologuing - which is an electric Smart car with onboard spectrum analysis equipment.
In addition, they are using Ranplan software to model the effect of buildings on RF coverage,
Covid has delayed the open access "Things Network" LoRaWAN roll out plans somewhat, as access to buildings to site the gateways and antennas has been curtailed. However, there are now eight locations in the process of being fitted out, which should provide good coverage across the city and environs. This is also being mapped in TTN Mapper.
This network should provide a coherent and reliable infrastructure for developers to deploy environmental sensors in the city, and is an area in which the region, Sheffield and Barnsley in particular, are showing a substantial density and advantage over other parts of the country.
Rob Bullock from Connexin & Darren Butt from Amey: Sheffield's Streets Ahead LoRaWAN sensor network
Darren is the Account Director for Amey, the prime contractor on Sheffield City Council's Streets Ahead programme, and Rob Bullock is Chief Sales Officer at Connexin, a connected places firm based in Hull.
Streets Ahead is a 25 year, £2b public-private partnership - the largest such contract in the UK - which was signed in 2012 and is responsible for maintaining the city's road network and everything associated with it, such as lighting, drainage and the urban forest, until 2037.
Amey and Connexin are working together to establish a city-wide carrier-grade LoRaWAN network in order to provide monitoring of the programmes assets and improve the efficiency of Streets Ahead's maintenance operations.
Streets Ahead employ around 160 people, roughly 100 of whom are involved in street cleaning. One of the first areas they have addressed with the new network infrastructure is to install fill-level sensors in every one of the city's public litter bins. In addition to efficiencies gained from directing workers to only the bins that need emptying, the team is also identifying specific litter behaviours related to season, weather and location which allow them to fine tune operations even further. This provides cost savings both to the programme and to the city, as well as quality benefits from reduced street litter, improved safety to workers from predicting the kinds of waste likely to be in different locations and reduced call-centre traffic from citizens as they can provide a far more proactive service.
Similar analyses and efficiency gains are being made by installing fill-level sensors in grit bins, soil moisture sensors for the city's street trees and planting and water flow sensors in culverts.
The team are now considering other types of data to ingest and integrate. For instance air quality data which they could use to route their vehicles so that they don't add unduly to current pollution levels.
The data is being presented and visualised using Connexin's CityOS open data platform, and they are now looking to make it available to other actors in the city to integrate it into their analysis and systems as well.
Sam Chapman from the Floow: Update on recent city data analyses
Sam is a co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer at The Floow, who are a Sheffield-based automotive telematics firm. He provided us with an update on several recent projects the company has been involved in to analyse and visualise large datasets of mobility and travel data:
Looking at how the Covid-19 pandemic has changed behaviour and usage of Sheffield city centre and in comparison with other parts of the UK.
Rat-running behaviour and active travel analysis, in conjunction with the Connecting Sheffield programme, which has received money from the "Transforming Cities Fund" to implement active travel and mobility improvements. (https://connectingsheffield.commonplace.is/)
The Floow have been involved in this kind of work across the UK, and have seen increasing demand for it. They are now looking to build a test bed in Sheffield City Region to encourage further development.Older Drivers: The Floow have been awarded research funding along with The University of Sheffield, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals and Devices for Dignity to better understand the relationship between specific medical conditions associated with old age and driving behaviour. This project starts early in 2021.
If anyone is interested in any of this research, please get in touch with Sam.
Prof. John Clark from Pitch-In: Towards a connected resilient society with IoT
John Clark is Professor of Computer and Information Security at The University of Sheffield, and is director of Pitch-In - a joint research programme between the universities of Sheffield, Cambridge, Oxford and Newcastle to Promote the Internet of Things via Collaboration between Higher education institutions and INdustry.
John updates on the project's current work and the plans for 2021, as well as how their focus has been changed by the Covid-19, putting preparation for the next pandemic higher up the agenda as they evaluate the potential for IoT technologies to have a positive impact on the UK's most pressing societal issues, and what contribution it can play in the UK Government's "Build Back Better" agenda and other related initiatives.
Some areas in which Pitch-In is going to get more heavily involved in are Logistics, especially as the effects of Brexit and repatriation of manufacturing unfolds; the "Energy Internet", i.e. the collection of application areas around energy generation, distribution and consumption, especially in industry and in smart or "active" buildings; Safer workspaces and adapting to changes in how work is carried out, for instance to increase social distancing; Robotics, particularly collaborative robots ("Cobots"), in industry but also increasingly in social settings, for instance to aid with children's medical care; and a number of other areas in which the landscape is changing as a result of the pandemic, such as education, home automation and security, connected health and well-being, etc.
Chris Dymond: SmartSheffield News for December 2020
Chris takes us through many ways in which Sheffield's digital industries and community have responded to the Covid-19 pandemic, these include products and initiatives from:
Airship
Ticket Bank and Tickets for Good
Razor and Digital Exchange
Tended
Tribepad and Voluntary Action Sheffield
City Grab, Chef Chef, 3 Miles and This Is Sheffield
MeetupCall
Natterhub
Twinkl
WANdIsco / Laptops for Kids
DonateYourTech
Many of these are described and linked in a post that Sheffield Digital put together at the end of November:
Check the Sheffield Digital website for more stories coming out of the city's burgeoning digital tech and media ecosystem, and/or subscribe to the newsletter to get them aggregated in your inbox once or twice a month.
Likewise, if you would like to stay abreast of things in the local smart cities and urban technology space, and be informed of future meetings, subscribe to the SmartShefield newsletter at the website and If you have any news you would like us to share, or present about at a future event, do please get in touch with me at info@smartSheffield.city.
