The Smart Santander project is an experimental platform consisting of a wireless sensor network composed of Waspmote sensor nodes with sensors, actuators, cameras and screens to offer useful information to citizens and visitors of the city in Spain.
The Waspmote sensor nodes are divided in 22 zones which each form independent networks working on different frequency channels so there is no interference between the zones . To set up and configure these network parameters each zone has a Meshlium. After the network is configured the Meshlium serves as a gateway where all the sensor nodes in its network send the data of their sensors to. The Meshlium gateway can then forward this data to a database and/or to other platforms for further processing, monitoring and analyzing of the measurements.
375 Waspmote sensor nodes have been used to monitor parking free slots. They are burried under the surface of the road at parking slots and have a magnetic field sensor to detect the variation of the magnetic field generated by a car parked on it. The data that the gateway receives from these sensor nodes will be visualised on panels througout the city of Santander to indicate the number of free parking slots. The status of the parking slots can also be consulted on a google map before going to the city center.
Another 750 Waspmote nodes in this project are spread over the city to monitor environmental parameters like temperature, luminosity, CO concentration and noise levels. If any of these sensors measures an unusual value above a specified treshold, the system will analyze the information and may send an alarm to the Meshlium gateway. To know where the sensors are located, each sensor node can also have a gps module to send its coordinates with the data it sends to the gateway. Also this data is visualised online on a real-time map so the citizens can check the environmental conditions around them.
The project allows researchers from all over the world to test different algorithms in a real environment.
I think this is a great way for testing wireless sensor networks in a real application set-up. It is great that the project is open for developers and researchers to test out their algorithms and applications to get real results.
The luminosity sensor in this application seems a little bit useless since it measures light intensity but except for monitoring nothing is really done with this value. A human eye can also see if it is light or dark outside. But of course this set up is still just used for testing. And later it can for example be used to automatically turn on and off the street lights in that area. Or when a solar panel is connected to it, the node can predict by the value of the luminosity sensor how much energy it will get from the sun and so it can decide how much measurements or other tasks it can do without losing too much battery.
Can you think about other smart city applications with sensor networks? Give your thoughts about smart cities in the comments, please.
If you would like to read more about this project you can go to following pages:
http://www.libelium.com/smart_santander_smart_parking/
http://www.libelium.com/smart_santander_parking_smart_city/
http://www.libelium.com/smart_santander_environment_smart_ctiy/
Waspmote Networks 