The following is an advance summary of a talk that I’m giving this Friday at the Nevada GIS Conference in Las Vegas. The title is, “Can U-City be Our City?: How South Korea’s Vision for a Wireless Sensor City Will Impact Geospatial Practice.”
You’ve likely heard of South Korea’s U-City concept, where the u stands for ubiquitous information technology –integrating sensors, computing power, and high-speed network connectivity to fully embrace the digital life. There has been ongoing investment in this project for some time, and the flagship model of the concept, New Songdo is progressing nicely with completion slated for 2015 at a price tag of $40 Billion.
The connected life is to include a personal RFID chip that will unlock doors and pay for transactions within the city. There will be an extensive sensor network for security, and for city management. The information architecture for the city will all be open, with major information systems of the city, the medical community, businesses and residents interconnected to share data. CISCO is supporting a citywide telepresence capability so that anyone within the city can communicate visually with each other wherever they are. There will also be a high-speed wireless information network for connectivity throughout the city.
This concept responds to many trends in society, with greater urbanization throughout the world, more concern about living efficiently, and increasing connectivity. The evolution of the systems and technology to make this automation and sensing possible has only recently come together. The cutting-edge integration of technologies is meant to be a showcase of technical prowess in an increasingly competitive international market for technology innovation.
This highly managed urban environment encompasses a number of technology trends such as the sensor web, social networking, and intelligent infrastructure. There will be a strong need to collect and analyze the sensor inputs in order to ensure security, efficient operation, and to reduce environmental impact. The close connection among citizens will give them a fully-vested input into the governance of their city. The tuned utility systems will take advantage of smart grid, smart water and other infrastructure systems, and green buildings will in turn be highly-managed facilities.
Similar visions for such a connected city are on the rise lately. The computing power and connectivity demands of such a city have major players salivating. IBM has their Smarter Planet campaign, HP talks about the Central Nervous System for Earth (CeNSE), Microsoft has the SenseWeb, and CISCO has the Planetary Skin. Each of these concepts embrace the vision of the Internet of Things, and each company hopes to help define and set the architecture to capture a large part of this market.
There are a number of geospatial trends that will support such a concept. The move toward CAD and GIS integration will help mesh the built world with the environment, and will place plans into the context of their surroundings. Enterprise GIS will mean the delivery of more services, and data as needed through viewers and lighter-weight applications that incorporate elements of analysis. The geospatial toolset will help inform current conditions, and to track changes in order to help plan for future conditions.
The way that we work in this new environment will also provide significant change as we align more along process and cross-disciplinary workflows to tackle situations, and fine-tune urban management. The geospatial practitioner will find new roles as synthesizer of information, and creator of customized viewers that fit the business process of the myriad municipal information customers.
The outcomes of all this deployed technology will be increased safety, more efficient operations, and overall improved performance of operations for better quality of life. Certainly there are concerns about such a highly-managed environment, but the level of transparency and flexibility of this new infrastructure will help the concept adapt to meet needs and surmount obstacles.
