Built Environment

Building the smart cities of tomorrow.

Sensors are already all around us. In our homes, our cars, our workplaces and our cities. Technology is advancing at a rapid rate and changing the way humans interact with their environment. The Internet of Things connects everyday objects to the internet, sharing and sending data to make daily life easier. Smart Cities will connect infrastructure, people and vehicles to help us move around faster, communicate more effectively and interact with the built environment more seamlessly, making cities more dynamic, safe and liveable. 

At the heart of it all are smart sensors, and NSW universities are at the forefront of smart sensing research, exploring new frontiers in optical, chemical and in-line sensing to deliver next-generation sensors that are wireless, networked, smaller, cheaper and more sensitive.

Partnering with the NSSN, companies can access expertise and technology from across NSW’s leading universities and gain an enduring competitive advantage. Some of the exciting R&D projects already taking place throughout the network include:

Researchers at Macquarie University have developed and trialled a pedestrian counting device based on pyroelectric sensors which has an accuracy of 95% compared to a controlled test. As the fundamental metric for Smart City architectures, pedestrian counts allow us to understand consumer behaviour patterns and impacts of urban environment disruptions such as sudden changes in traffic conditions. Compared to other methods, this method provides a low-cost and low-power set up that reports data via a LoRaWAN network, which can advise the community on smart decision making based on real-time information.

UTS data science researchers are using leading AI/data science techniques to integrate multiple sensing datasets in the water sector to provide ground-breaking approaches for the improvement of risk analysis and reactive maintenance, as well as to deliver significant economic benefits.

Through the integration of a wide range of novel techniques, they are actively leading efforts to expand their discoveries beyond the water industry to the wider community. Their efforts are resulting in a number of increased social benefits including energy savings, environmental sustainability and improved community health, nationally and internationally.

Working with the NSSN simplifies the process of engaging with universities. With over $3 million in funding from Sydney Water and a range of other Australian water utilities, the NSSN has led groundbreaking research into emerging technologies that can better predict and prevent critical failures in water supply networks.

The multi-disciplinary project drew upon quantum sensing expertise from ANU, acoustic sensing expertise from UNSW, pressure transient sensing from the University of Newcastle and data analytics at UTS. The project synthesised discoveries in these fields to generate technologies that will be in the ground within 12 months and is a demonstration of the power of the NSSN in leading complex projects that led to applied solutions for industry.

In addition to Sydney Water, the collaboration brought together a range of Australian water utilities including Hunter Water, SA Water, Melbourne Water, Queensland Urban Utilities, Intelligent Water Networks along with the NSSN and the NSW state government.