i3 - January/February 2016 - 35

the Rise
Upgrading the
infrastructure
of metropolitan
areas is
a major
opportunity
for companies
involved in IoT.
smart urban systems will amount to around $400 billion per year by 2020. Technology can make a real difference in improving living conditions inside metropolitan
areas.
SMARTER ENERGY MANAGEMENT
One category is smart grids, which involves building dedicated, energy-efficient computing centers that automatically predict and manage demand for electricity. One main
advantage of a smart grid is its ability to reduce demand during peak usage intervals by
informing smart devices in the home and local businesses when energy demand is high,
thus preventing system overloads. Examples consist of utility companies automatically
adjusting the level of street lighting based on natural brightness conditions or shifting
temperature set levels for air conditioners in a city.
THE INTELLIGENT AUTOMOBILE
Self-driving cars also can change the infrastructure of smart cities by ushering in fully
automated public transportation-a move that will ensure a bright future for automotive companies, sensor providers and the semiconductor industry. Adopting a fleet of
autonomous, intelligent public transport systems would also help shake off images
C TA . t e c h / i 3

of long delays and overcrowding that still
reside in the public consciousness.
Recent advances in semiconductor
design have allowed OEMs to embed
more processors inside vehicles. A
typical car today has between 20 and 100
individual modules running real-time
operating systems. However, self-driving
cars require even more advanced microprocessor and microcontroller modules
with hardware memory management,
multithreading and virtualization capabilities that allow for more sophisticated
software applications to be implemented,
including model-based process control,
artificial intelligence and advanced vision
computing.
Self-driving cars will also come
equipped with cutting-edge in-vehicle
communications systems such as 5G. A
smart intelligent transport system could
then use the data readings from these
vehicles to compute average speeds on
busy roads, on-street or garage parking
occupancy rates. More advanced methods
could also rely on machine-to-machine
(M2M) communications to direct selfdriving cars away from congested areas of
traffic or to avoid accidents.

THE E-HEALTH OPPORTUNITY
Worldwide healthcare costs-particularly
among aging populations-are growing at an alarming rate. To address this
issue, national and local governments
need to work together with the healthcare
and semiconductor industries to adopt a
digital approach to healthcare also known
as e-health. There are signs of this collaboration happening today. For example,
the British-based Toumaz Group ran a six
month study at Saint John's Health Center
in Los Angeles in October 2012, monitoring 270 general ward patients using stateof-the art sensor equipment.
It turned out to be a successful pilot
program, showing numerous benefits.
From a medical perspective, hospital
staff was able to detect and react much
better to deteriorating conditions for a
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2016

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/246019/bis-13-1209-smart-cities-background-paper-digital.pdf http://CTA.tech/i3

i3 - January/February 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of i3 - January/February 2016