Smart cities, safer cities

State-of-the-art technology associated to governance committed with efficiency and sustainability bring good results in increasing safety of the largest cities of the world

The University of São Paulo (USP) and Huawei—one of the largest world suppliers of equipment for networks and telecommunication, headquartered in Guangdong, China—signed an agreement for collaboration in research, development and professionals’ qualification, focused on smart cities. The project involves the installation of cameras, sensors and IoT devices to identify safety problems, in addition to research for the development of wireless networks (especially 5G) and professional qualification.

The project is based on the concept of Safe City, one of the basic premises to offer solutions involving the concept of smart cities. The pilot project—that is initially being tested indoor—involves a non-intrusive system to control access using facial recognition and image of automotive vehicles (license plate, color, model, type).

When passing through the cameras, persons are identified and their recorded information (such as name, student or not, in what building has classes, among others) are shown in the screen located inside the command center. In addition, any object carried by the person—a backpack or a cell phone, for example—is also identified. If the person is not registered in the data base (in other words, if he is a possible intruder), a red alarm sounds in the screen and a message is sent in real time to the responsible for monitoring. It is also possible to get all information about the path of this person, his tracking. In other words, if he is an intruder, it will be possible to check where he passed by and where he is going.

The project also includes the proposal of transparent technology to make access free with a single and distributed registration using Big Data, data analysis for behavior definition, use of cloud computing, sensor networks in the recognizing devices and operation combined with the surveillance system.

“This partnership—carried out to develop state-of-the-art products and technologic solutions on the area of IoT—is fundamental for the evolution of students, teachers, industry and society as a whole”, explained Moacyr Martucci Jr, full professor of computing engineering in the Polytechnic School of the University of Sao Paulo.

“We understand that public safety is fundamental for smart cities. The components of public safety and cybernetics are fundamental for different areas such as transport, health, safety. We are working with partners and universities to improve them”, said Vinícius Fiori, director of communications and public relations from Huawei.

Among the tools already installed there are systems of cameras, sensors and IoT devices, such as sensors for temperature, people flow, height, pressure and even pH of water. These devices allow them to recognize objects and persons with facial identification using video analytics developed by students and professors of the university.

When used together, these solutions will be able to identify paths of pedestrians and vehicles, as well as patterns of behavior, and may send alerts through the web or a cell phone to attend occurrences when some incident or suspect activity is detected.

It is possible, for example, to integrate the data base of the university with information coming from all persons registered in the systems and solutions of surveillance by video and control of access, identifying through images the persons that circulated through the campus in a non-intrusive way. All information is stored in cloud to be processed with increased safety and agility.