Smart sensors: from buildings and cities to industry and health
Sensors have stopped being the almost invisible components of a workshop or factory. Hardware Libre surveys several projects in Spain and Europe where networks of connected devices, data platforms and artificial intelligence are used for very different tasks: anticipating breakdowns, monitoring pollution, identifying birds by their song, or improving vehicle safety.
The most detailed example is Scamia in Madrid, a project of the municipal housing company EMVS that will be applied to fifteen buildings by 2027, thirteen of them public housing. It has a budget of about 5.2 million euros with European co-financing and revolves around a digital twin of each building. Data from roughly two hundred sensors per building, connected via Wi-Fi and IoT, is analysed to measure temperature, relative humidity or CO2 levels and detect anomalies before the neighbours notice them. The data is anonymised and linked to households, not to individuals.
The people in charge estimate a 15% to 20% reduction in maintenance costs for equipment such as aerothermal systems or boilers, and a 5% to 10% cut in energy consumption. The article adds a dose of realism: those percentages come to roughly 40 or 100 euros a year per home in energy, and the real value shows up when you add up many homes and avoid costly breakdowns.
In Cartagena another network is being prepared for the northern neighbourhoods, with a contract of 130,258 euros including VAT and around fifteen devices that will measure gases such as nitrogen dioxide or ozone.
I think it is a good reminder that the same principles we use in a home project, with a microcontroller and a temperature sensor, scale up to a whole city. The hard part, as the text points out, is not measuring but turning millions of readings into useful decisions.
Source: Hardware Libre
The most detailed example is Scamia in Madrid, a project of the municipal housing company EMVS that will be applied to fifteen buildings by 2027, thirteen of them public housing. It has a budget of about 5.2 million euros with European co-financing and revolves around a digital twin of each building. Data from roughly two hundred sensors per building, connected via Wi-Fi and IoT, is analysed to measure temperature, relative humidity or CO2 levels and detect anomalies before the neighbours notice them. The data is anonymised and linked to households, not to individuals.
The people in charge estimate a 15% to 20% reduction in maintenance costs for equipment such as aerothermal systems or boilers, and a 5% to 10% cut in energy consumption. The article adds a dose of realism: those percentages come to roughly 40 or 100 euros a year per home in energy, and the real value shows up when you add up many homes and avoid costly breakdowns.
In Cartagena another network is being prepared for the northern neighbourhoods, with a contract of 130,258 euros including VAT and around fifteen devices that will measure gases such as nitrogen dioxide or ozone.
I think it is a good reminder that the same principles we use in a home project, with a microcontroller and a temperature sensor, scale up to a whole city. The hard part, as the text points out, is not measuring but turning millions of readings into useful decisions.
Source: Hardware Libre
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