mioty® for a Smart City – Saarlouis

Demographic change, digitalization and the challenges of climate protection have received increasing attention and priority in recent years. By using modern technologies such as various sensors, cities can become more efficient and climate-friendly, improving the quality of life of residents and visitors. To retrieve and transmit the data, economical and reliable communication technologies are then needed as innovative solutions to implement applications with low maintenance and low cost in the long run.

Initial situation –

Example of the district town of Saarlouis

In order for the district town of Saarlouis to increase its attractiveness and future viability, it is pushing ahead with its development into a smart city. Among other things, this transformation is to be enabled by parking space monitoring, a traffic guidance system, sensors for recording environmental data and the reading of meter readings. In order to achieve the best possible potential for these use cases, a high-performance solution was sought that is characterized in particular by robust IoT communication that can be deployed over a large area.

For initial tests of various use cases, a mioty^® infrastructure with base stations was set up at the market square and at the tower of the town hall. With the help of four different sensor nodes, data was collected and transmitted via mioty^®. The data collected included GPS position as well as environmental data such as temperature, air pressure and humidity. Another environmental sensor also recorded illumination intensity and magnetic field strength. Last, a node with pulse interface was used for water and energy consumption.

Finally, the useful data collected and transmitted to the base station was stored in a cloud and visualized and evaluated via a web front end.

Conclusion

In the course of the measurement campaign, mioty^® proved to be a suitable connectivity technology in the smart city area. Looking at the two base locations, the reliable coverage of large areas could be proven as well as the tendency of the station to be better located at the town hall tower of the district town. Likewise, the building penetration of mioty^® was measured and, for example, data could be reliably sent from transformer stations. In addition, further measurements are to be taken at the base station on the Grosser Markt in the future to enable a long-term meaningful statistical evaluation.

Use Cases and Benefit

The first use cases have already been identified through the transmission of the various sensor data. Added value can be seen, for example, in the collection of environmental data. When recorded over a longer period of time, this data can provide information about the quality of life in a city like Saarlouis.

Specifically, the following applications and users are addressed to the IoT technology:   

• Energy measurement in submetering (heat, pressure, electricity...)
• Moisture sensors for irrigation in agriculture
• Level monitoring of waste containers
• Level measurement during heavy rain events (in the public as well as in the private sector)
• Environmental sensors
• and much more...