Intelligent sensors for smart cities

Smart cities’ is a term that is bandied around a great deal these days. Urban planners and infrastructure engineers believe that inserting intelligence into utilities distribution — electricity, gas and water — and into the crucial elements of city structures, such as bridges and buildings, will help to optimise the flow of resources, minimise energy use, provide accurate billing for domestic and business consumers and schedule structural maintenance.

However, for all the possible advantages, there are technical challenges. One of the most obvious is in how to gather all the information needed to operate such a widespread system. It’s a problem of sensors — they must be robust, cheap, easy to maintain and reliable, as their readings will be used to determine billing.

‘Traditionally, gas, electricity and water meters have been mechanical,’ said Nick Collier, head of science and technology at UK development consultancy Sagentia. ‘They’re low cost, they meet the accuracy requirements and they’re really well trusted. But with the advent of smart metering, you need to have remote sensing of meters, which means that you have to think about electronics and power.’