Intelligent infrastructure combines sensors, network connectivity and software to monitor and analyze complex systems to uncover inefficiency and inform optimal operations. The sensor component collects operational detail over time as well as providing real-time inputs on current conditions. The network connectivity ensures the flow of information between systems, other sensors, and practitioners. The software component provides oversight and analysis, integrating insight from various systems and personnel. The approach incorporates the management of multiple processes for more collaborative and multidisciplinary workflows. Intelligence is constantly improving from such a system through incremental improvements that are informed through constant monitoring and analysis.
The idea of intelligent infrastructure has been around for a long time in one form or another. Early forays into real-time monitoring of systems include industrial control systems such as SCADA. What largely sets the newer concept of intelligent infrastructure apart is an advancement in sensors, systems and networks that enable us to go beyond simply monitoring. Instead of the more passive alarms when inputs exceed accepted norms, intelligent infrastructure is a more holistic approach that aims to model and manage with a greater understanding of the interconnectivity of systems and the implications of events.
Big Blue Leads the Way
IBM is well out in front of publicizing and practicing the concept of intelligent infrastructure with their Smarter Planet campaign and their SmarterCity initiative. The company trades on their large-scale integration work and their understanding of complex systems to promote this idea of instrumented, interconnected, and then intelligent systems.
At the core of this concept is the idea of a system of systems approach. In the complex urban core, it’s a combination of transportation, healthcare, economic development, public safety, energy and utilities, and education systems. Each of these individual systems is in themselves a system of multiple inputs from multiple sensors and systems. IBM asserts that it’s largely an issue of constant data collection and open data exchanges that yield smarts for these systems. The resulting repository yields the ability to see how things are performing and a clear picture on how to redeploy resources quickly in advance of any problems or failures.
IBM takes a partnership approach toward achieving their Smarter Planet goals, working with a number of geospatial players to map assets and analyze details geographically. IBM’s Maximo Spatial Asset Management system integrates with ESRI’s ArcGIS Server to incorporate the GIS view, display map content, provide geospatial querying capability, and read data direct from multiple geodatabases. The geospatial component is clearly needed, particularly in the complex environments of an urban setting, and location often acts as the glue to integrate disparate data and systems together.
Flexible and Responsive
Given the changes of rapid urbanization and the pressures to adapt to climate change, it’s imperative that we fine tune our systems to be more flexible and responsive. The concept of intelligent infrastructure is also strategically timed for great demographic shifts that will leave many high-level jobs vacant due to retirements. These systems can bridge the knowledge gap by recording and modeling best business practice and process in advance of losing legacy operational knowledge.
Examples of industry approaches that might qualify as “intelligent infrastructure” in my mind are:
- the skeletonization of water networks for better understanding of full-network issues
- intelligent traffic systems and sensors on bridges to measure and monitor performance
- the detailed use of spatial analysis for renewable energy siting and ongoing monitoring of in situ conditions for optimal energy generation
- more efficient building heating, cooling and lighting systems for energy conservation
- detailed underground models for more informed oil and gas extraction
In all the above examples, there is a considerable increase in infrastructure and mapping efforts, but the payoffs can also be huge. An energy savings of 40 percent translates into a lower energy bill, less of a dependence on foreign energy sources, and reduced emissions. Intelligent traffic can dramatically reduce drive times and congestion, while cutting down on carbon emissions. While the solutions themselves are smart, the investment is also smart because the benefits far outweigh the costs.
Unleashing Creativity
Given the cross-cutting nature of intelligent infrastructure, where operational data from multiple separate operations are combined, there’s a great deal of opportunity for creative approaches to problem solving. Instead of being constrained by traditional business silos, these new systems will unlock cross-organization information to reveal the inefficiencies that exist between different systems.
As the systems mature and much more is known about operations, solutions to problems can be tested almost as in a laboratory setting. With the sensor-based feedback, and the growing knowledge base, pilot projects can be tested and the great deal of data that is generated can be analyzed to determine any performance improvements.
Through the application of intelligent infrastructure, we can gain a much better handle on the materials and resources that our systems consume. This conservation-first approach will go a long way toward improving our efficiency for a more sustainable approach, and will greatly improve the way we manage and construct our built world.
Get Involved: The Geospatial Information & Technology Association will be exploring the geospatial dimension of intelligent infrastructure at their upcoming annual meeting in Phoenix in April. I’ll be acting as facilitator for discussions with the Industry Trends Analysis Group (ITAG) on Monday morning of the event. If this topic is of interest to you, be sure to become involved.
Additional Resources
IBM – A Smarter Planet Initiative
Intelligent Infrastructure Definition – University of Toronto, Dept. of Civil Engineering
Intelligent Infrastructure – Water Matters Blog at the Earth Institute at Columbia University
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