Willdan is proud to highlight IEEE Electrification Magazine’s recent publication of “Smart Cities for a Sustainable Urbanization,” by Willdan Board member Dr. Mohammad Shahidehpour; Willdan Vice President for Smart Cities Dr. Mehdi Ganji; and Dr. Zhiyi Li. The authors have conducted research with Illinois Institute of Technology’s Robert W. Galvin Center for Electricity Innovation, home of the pioneering Perfect Power microgrid, Dr. Shahidehpour as its director
IEEE Electrification Magazine, published by IEEE’s Power and Energy Society, focuses on concepts, emerging technologies, and practices for electrification in the transportation and off-grid sectors. Its June issue features eight articles on Smart Cities. The subject piece explains the interconnected systems needed to create smart urban infrastructure, and strategies for implementing these technologies.
The article begins by explaining the challenges we face building and improving cities, and elaborates on how to create smart urban systems, emerging Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs), and why these infrastructure developments will benefit cities and their residents. “A smart city is an urban center that integrates a variety of innovative solutions to improve infrastructural performances to achieve sustainable urban development. In particular, the adoption of smart city solutions is a key factor in the consumption of resources for improving the efficiency of services and meeting individual citizens’ needs, as urban population grows, and resources become scarce.
A smart city therefore depends on underlying urban infrastructures to create necessary services for its citizens to develop their professional, social, and cultural lives.”
The article is available for purchase from IEEE or for subscriber access here.
Read about Willdan’s Smart Cities solutions.
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Purpose
This article is one of eight feature articles and two columns that discuss smart city technologies and application for IEEE Electrification Magazine’s Smart Cities June issue. This article focuses on innovative solutions for urban centers to improve systems and efficiently use resources.
Challenge
As populations grow, urban infrastructure and development face a variety of challenges, such as aging equipment, technological obsolescence, and lack of capacity to meet demand. The key urban systems identified here are transportation, energy, and municipal systems, and the way those systems overlap and work together.
Methods
Optimizing the management of major cities could provide solutions presented by rapid population growth and urbanization. The emergence of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) illustrates how interconnected systems that manage smart city infrastructures could support sociotechnical and socioeconomic initiatives to better improve the lives of city residents and efficiently share resources in an urban setting.
Solutions
An integration scheme for orchestrating the planning and operation of various urban infrastructures is critical because the optimal operations of smart city infrastructures are progressively intertwined and interdependent. ICTs advance these interconnections on three levels:
- Technical and Syntax: Concerning message exchange and data structure
- Informational and Semantics: Concerning concepts exchanged among city infrastructures
- Administrative and Organizational: Concerning operational processes as well as strategic and tactical objectives
Conclusions
Smart cities catalyze the development of optimization in cities to face modern challenges. Interconnection and efficiency is prioritized but must be motivated by an understanding of human-machine partnerships. These emerging technologies must be developed with respect to existing human systems, to maintain the wellbeing, security, and safety of citizens under various environmental and regulatory conditions. With this balance in mind, cities around the globe will improve the efficiency, sustainability, reliability, and resilience of urban areas.
