Community Engagement Using Urban Sensing: Technology Development and Deployment Studies

There is considerable interest globally in "smart cities" due to the emergence of game changing technologies including IoT platforms, cloud computing, and powerful automation architectures. A host of smart city applications exist including connected and autonomous vehicles, controlled urban watersheds, pedestrian and vehicle tracking, among others. However, a general-purpose urban sensing architecture has not yet emerged that empowers all stakeholders in a city to partake in data collection and data-driven decision making. This paper describes the development of the Urbano sensing architecture designed for dense deployments in cities for a wide variety of smart city applications. The design of the architecture is based on the belief that urban sensing can play a major role in empowering communities to collect data on urban processes and transform how communities engage with city stakeholders to make decisions. Urbano does not require persistent power sources nor wired communication mediums, and is an ultra-low power wireless sensor node that is capable of collecting sensor measurements, supporting embedded computing, and communicating using cellular wireless communication. The Urbano sensor node has been deployed in several smart city engagements in Michigan. The first uses GPS-enabled Urbano nodes to track food trucks in Grand Rapids as part of a larger effort in curbside management. The second monitors pedestrian traffic and air quality along the Detroit waterfront to better understand public utilization of spaces to guide future investments. The third packages Urbano nodes in a kit called "Sensors in a Shoebox" for youth and community deployment in southwest Detroit to measure air quality.