Project Title: Study on the Mechanics of Smart City Sensors Project Location: Dublin, Ireland ND Faculty Mentor: Jay Brockman Project Type: Research

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Jonathan Moses McCarthy
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1 Margaret Crawford Graduation Year: Sophomore College: Engineering Major(s): Mechanical Engineering Minors(s): N/A Scholar Group Membership: Hesburgh-Yusko Did you received other funding for this project?: No Could you have completed this project without CUSE funding? No More details on CUSE funding assistance? I would not have been able to go on this research trip without CUSE. CUSE's funding providing me an awesome and invaluable experience over fall break. Project Title: Study on the Mechanics of Smart City Sensors Project Location: Dublin, Ireland ND Faculty Mentor: Jay Brockman Project Type: Research Why did you undertake this project/experience? Deepen your knowledge of a topic or issue, Career discernment and/or preparation, Internationalize your Notre Dame experience Did your funded experience help you: [Deepen your understanding of your coursework or field of study]: Yes [Discern your interests and post-bac goals]: Very Much [Become confident in your ability to set and achieve your goals]: Very Much [Gain a more nuanced view of local, national, or global communities]: Very Much [Improve your written and verbal communications skills]:yes Tell us about your experience. Over fall break, two of my friends and I travelled to Dublin to research smart city infrastructure in the city, especially their use of sensors and real-time data. I specifically was focusing on the mechanics of how the sensors work, what data is being collected, and what is being done with that data. I first met with Professor Brian Caulfield, a civil engineering professor at Trinity College Dublin who does smart cities research related to transportation in Dublin. Professor Caulfield worked on developing an app called Peacox that uses real time traffic data to calculate the emissions of different routes and tell someone the most environmentally friendly route to take to their destination. However, I found that Professor Caulfield used floating car data from the GPS company TomTom to create his app; he did not use any novel sensors, just the ones that already existed attached to peoples cars. He also explained that he is now researching the impact of a severe storm event on the transportation system of Dublin by studying hypothetical situations. One, at the Loviisa Nuclear Power Plant, focuses on the ramifications of flooding the nuclear reactor. The other, in the alpine region of northern Italy, focuses on the stress from a storm that structures must sustain to collapse tunnels and roads. Finally, Professor Caulfield

2 briefed me on one project done by one of his graduate students in which he placed induction loop sensors in the pavement of bike lanes. He explained that an induction loop sensor uses a moving magnet to induce an electrical current in a wire. When a bike or car, which both have significant amounts of metal, passes over top of the sensor, an electric current is induced in the wire through eddy currents and sends a signal. The data was then transmitted via fiber optic cable in the ground to the student, who cross referenced the data collected with traffic light data to determine how often cyclists in Dublin obey traffic lights. Next, our group met with Professor Rob Kitchn, a geographer at Maynooth University. According to him, he is on the more urban side of the smart city and less of the technical side. He studies what it means to create a smart city and what it is like to live in one, with case studies in Boston and Dublin. He said they have looked at everything from smart lighting that senses the amount of light outside and lights streets accordingly to save energy, to emergency response and disaster management. Some of these studies are completed through hackathons, in which the people of Dublin can come together for a day and work on the cities problems in a technological way. Because of the large tech community in Dublin, these are apparently large events. However, Professor Kitchn said most of the apps and solutions created at hackathons don t end up going anywhere. However, one of the most interesting things that Professor Kitchn has done is create the Dublin Dashboard, a website that compiles a real-time stream of all the sensors and data in the city. It is an extremely impressive and useful tool, although they are having trouble getting citizens to use or even look at the site. Finally, he mentioned that Dublin is just starting to work on a smart grid, in which they could monitor the amount of energy that households and other buildings take off the grid, and hopefully share that information to nudge the people inhabiting the buildings to use less energy. Next, we met with Dr. Melanie Bouroche, another professor at Trinity College Dublin. Dr. Bouroche has worked on apps for smarter cities, called GreenWatch, FloodWatch, and CityWatch, that use smart phones and GPS as sensors. Although the apps were innovative ways of helping citizens be aware of mobility and energy issues in their daily lives, the developers found that hardly anyone would download and use the app. They were disconnected from their target audience. Interestingly, though, Dr. Bouroche said that in studies on transportation issues, they found that even just getting 20% of people to cooperate in a traffic event would clear up the congestion. Only 20% of Dublin would need to use the apps to avoid transportation issues. Finally, Dr. Bouroche stressed that smart cities research is looking at how we can use IT to manage resources better. Our next meeting was with David Prendergast, a lead researcher from Intel on the Dublin Smart City project. Mr. Prenderhast explained that, unlike many of the articles we had read, Dublin was not the first fully sensored city in the world. Intel s project turned out to be too expensive and extensive, so they condensed the program in to just a flood management project and installed rain gauges and weather systems all over the city. They have also been working on creating a small boat stocked with sensors to float on the River Liffey and constantly collect data about river depths, water quality, and more. Although it has not yet been launched, this boat will hopefully collect valuable data about the River Liffey and what happens to it during storm events, and will be the first city with this kind of project. Mr. Prendergast continued on to explain that he is an anthropologist and that the many smart city projects in Dublin need to ask why they are researching and implementing technology and collecting and analyzing data. He

3 mentioned Dr. Bouroche s app as a project that failed to do this; they did not ask what kind of app the citizens of Dublin would want or use, they just made an app and found that no one would use it. He also emphasized that the future of this technology will be making many systems that can talk to each other, sensors that communicate across the board with many other sensors and groups. Finally, Mr. Prendergast explained that Intel does not design or make any of their sensors; they partner with other companies or programs to use existing sensors, like smartphones, or buy them from outside researchers. Our final meeting was with Mr. Jamie Cudden, head of Smart Cities for the Dublin City Council. Mr. Cudden basically summarized what we had learned all week, and what I had taken away from our many meetings. There are many smart city projects, most involving sensors and real time data, that are being worked on in Dublin today. However, these many projects need to communicate with each other, to coordinate how the interlocking projects can best benefit Dublin, and with the people of Dublin, to understand what their needs are and what they want from the city. The many articles about Dublin as a smart city are somewhat exaggerated; however, Dublin still has great potential as a smart city. International top researchers and tech companies are working in the city on improving it with technology. Mr. Cudden said that they are working hard to connect the many projects and implement what they can in the city. Overall, I learned that most sensors that are being used in Dublin are not special implementations; rather, they are existing technologies that can also be used as sensors, such as smart phones or GPS systems. Those sensors that are being implemented specifically for smart city use are relatively simple, such as the rain gauge or the induction loop sensor, or are imported from outside sources. The majority of the data being collected pertains to transportation and mobility, energy, and the environment. This data is processed and analyzed usually to inform the people of Dublin of smarter ways to function on a daily basis. They can see how much energy their household uses and cut energy use accordingly, the most environmentally friendly way to work, or which roads home are flooded. The data is also useful to the city, which can see where pollution levels are the highest, which buildings drain the most energy, and where possible floods may occur, and take action accordingly. Altogether, I found Dublin to have a disorganized smart cities program, but with a potential to grow into a groundbreaking new model of the future city. Describe the impact this project had, both on you as a student-scholar and on the people you worked with. The biggest impact this had on me as a student-scholar was helping me realize that this is not the field of engineering I want to go into professionally. Although I found our discussions interesting and educational, I would rather be building machines than planning cities. This will guide me as I continue to search for what field of mechanical engineering I want to go in to after I graduate. I also think this was a great introduction into research projects and grant writing. Next summer, as a Hesburgh-Yusko scholar, I will complete my research summer for the program. This project was an invaluable learning experience that will well prepare me for the research process both next summer and in future research endeavors that I may undertake.

4 Describe how this experience is connected to your plans as a student or future professional. This experience is connected to my future plans as a student and future professional in that it will guide the work I am doing now with South Bend s Office of Innovation. The Office of Innovation is South Bend s own department devoted to making South Bend a smarter city. I think many of the lessons and observations that I took away from Dublin can be applied to South Bend, and hopefully will enrich my experience as an intern for the office. South Bend can learn a lot from both Dublin s successes and failures in smart city projects. More specifically, I think it would be interesting to start using existing sensors, like smart phones and GPS systems, in the office s efforts. I also think the Office of Innovation can learn from Dublin s failure to communicate between projects and with the citizens; hopefully, South Bend can avoid the mistakes that Dublin has already committed. Altogether, I think this experience will inform and influence my work at the Office of Innovation. What advice would you give other students who are planning to pursue similar projects? My advice to other students who are planning to pursue similar projects is to be prepared for anything and understand that all things are subject to change. We went to Dublin expecting to find a thriving smart cities initiative, with Intel s extensive sensor gateway implemented, as many articles seemed to indicate was happening. We found Dublin s smart city efforts, although still interesting and exciting projects, to be less extensive and unified as the media had implied. However, this change was not detrimental to the project. Rather, it was still an extremely educational trip in which we learned not just how to create a smart city with sensors and real time data, but also how not to create a smart city. This information is just as valuable for us as students and for the city of South Bend. Therefore, I would tell students planning to pursue similar projects to be prepared to be flexible.

Grace Hills Graduation Year: Sophomore College: Arts & Letters Major(s): Psychology Minors(s): Business Economics Scholar Group Membership: NA

Grace Hills Graduation Year: Sophomore College: Arts & Letters Major(s): Psychology Minors(s): Business Economics Scholar Group Membership: NA Did you received other funding for this project?: no Could