Last week, [ui!] was announced as a winner of the Smart 50 Awards from a selection of global applicants, each representing new and innovative Smart City projects. The Smart 50 Awards are granted annually at the Smart Cities Connect conference. The award focuses on rewarding some of the most influential projects and forward-thinking ideas of the year. Working closely with the technology community, the Smart 50 Awards brings the largest collection of intelligent systems providers for energy, infrastructure, networks, data management, urban mobility, citizen engagement and governance solutions.

‘We accelerate the adoption of smart technology solutions, aid in problem-solving, and amplify city resources for the betterment of cities, communities, and their citizens.’

Our winning project ‘Urban Intelligence as-a-Service’ (UIaaS), in partnership with Deutsche Bank and Microsoft, sees new developments in light control technology to support the digitalisation of the city of Bad Hersfeld, Germany. UIaaS is a model that merges new developments in AI, the digitalisation of public infrastructures and innovative solutions into one complete service. The aim is to reduce the complexity of projects and accelerate the modernisation of infrastructures to meet the climate and environmental goals of the city, whilst avoiding high capital expenditure.

Through innovative solutions for urban infrastructures and buildings, UIaaS focuses on the modernisation of street lighting. This unseen-before adaptable lighting technology will achieve greater energy/CO₂ savings, higher levels of safety, and reduced ecological impacts using platform-based AI models. The central focus of UIaaS is street lighting as a major energy consumer, safety device and carrier infrastructure for innovative technologies including sensor technology.

[ui!]’s new developments in light control have seen us implement a solution that can dynamically control brightness, colour temperature and photometric light distribution, whilst complying with the recommendations of the Ministry of Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear Safety (BMU). The project involves the use of traffic sensor networks, sensors for recording road conditions, and a newly developed app that allows citizens to control the light according to their own sensibilities. This new technology improves the adaptability of lighting and therefore efficiency of economic and ecological factors.

The key components of the model are three-dimensional control (brightness, colour temperature, light distribution) of street lighting responding to several variables (traffic, weather, and citizens) and the reuse of urban data AI-based forecasting models (energy/malfunctions). The project was made possible by the active involvement of the city, the mayor, and the citizens of Bad Hersfeld. The model was conceived with the support of technology manufacturers; technically by Schréder and scientifically by the Technical University of Berlin; an institution regarded internationally for advancements in streetlighting and photometrics.

The highly advanced technology will also allow for future urban data sources to be integrated, as well as those focused on in this project. This maximises the sources of data that can be used, for example, traffic concepts, road service and urban heat islands. This innovative technology will also allow future clients to choose the domain in which to implement the model, whether it is smart lighting, air quality, parking, and traffic, or all the above. The service provides support, operation and maintenance of the system, allowing it to run without initial investment or action needed from the city.

The recognition of our success in Bad Hersfeld is a testament to our innovative data measuring and new advancements within green technology. UIaaS is a key component in the development of smart cities and regions. It is an honour to be selected as one of the winners this year, and receiving this recognition clearly shows the impact we are having on the future of Smart City technology.

Smart 50 Awards (smartcitiesconnect.org)