Peachtree Corners in the US, playing home to a live smart city testbed, has now installed 5G-enabled traffic monitoring video sensors. The city has signed with Bosch to deploy video-based analytics to manage driverless shuttles, remote-controlled e-scooters, and regular vehicles. Cradlepoint’s 5G router for testing fail-over connectivity is also included in the setup.
Peachtree Corners is home to the Curiosity Lab smart city project, funded by the city and federal grants, which includes a 1.5-mile test and demo track for autonomous vehicles and a glut of smart city pilots on a 500-acre technology park. US carrier Sprint, now part of T-Mobile, has deployed 5G for the setup. Cisco, Georgia Power, Delta Airlines, and Georgia Tech are also involved.
The partnership with Bosch is to test and develop video sensor technology, running machine learning over 5G, in a live environment in the Atlanta suburb, the pair said. The work will take place at a connected intersection in the city, which falls under the stewardship of the Curiosity Lab collective. It will consider how autonomous vehicles and tele-operated e-scooters will “intermingle” with regular traffic, including vehicles, cyclists, and pedestrians.
The findings will “unveil a host of data points [to]… help cities across the globe better prepare for tomorrow,” they said in a statement. Peachtree Corners is one of the first cities, anywhere, to carry liability insurance for both driven and driverless traffic.
The city is running a fleet of remote controlled electric scooters that can be delivered to customers and returned to parking spots by tele-operators – working from an office in Mexico City. The challenge to locate scooters for usage, and also to return them for safe parking, have “plagued the industry”, according to the city. The tele-operated e-scooters, from US micro-mobility firm Tortoise, solve this challenge, and also do away with the cost and hassle of retrieving scooters using cars and vans.
Last week, the city said it had deployed an AI-based smart city management system to run as a single control window for the city’s entire IoT development. The new system, from Illinois-based IPgallery, is designed to enable the city to manage its multiplying array of sensor solutions. It is billed as a “glimpse of how cities will manage millions of connected devices in the future”, with a view to defending against cyber-attacks, and sundry outages and failures.
Brian Johnson, city manager at Peachtree Corners, said: “Our 5G-enabled living lab will give Bosch the opportunity to push the limits of its technology in a real-world setting that is almost impossible to replicate in a closed lab, while enhancing overall city operations and the lives of our residents. The city also provides Bosch a real-world showcase for customers to come and experience its technology applied to an actual city, not just in concept.”
Lewis Stallworth, business development manager with Bosch, commented: “[Our] video sensor technology assists city planners in making informed [real-time] decisions on traffic management. [This partnership] gives an opportunity to showcase and test intelligent video analytics with machine learning capabilities, with a connected intersection, autonomous vehicles, autonomous scooters and autonomous package delivery – all in a real-world environment.”
