Smarter solutions for modern cities: the evolution of intelligent buildings

Axis Communications’ Steven Kenny explains that smart cities need small, localised projects as much as they need broad, city-wide changes

Society is entering its optimisation phase. The flood of technology of the past three decades is now ready to routinely interconnect, joining the dots of the systems and processes which make up every daily societal interaction to create urban environments which revolutionise the way we live. Smart cities are inevitable – but as much as the broad sweep of tech’s hand will help make public services like traffic management, waste collection and crime prevention more efficient, the biggest changes will come as a result of smaller projects.

For the smart city concept to truly work, those cities must be built in two directions at once: from the outside in, creating vast networks of data which align the high level functions of a city; and inside out, adding intelligence to individual buildings which allows them both to feed back to the main data stream and also manage themselves in the most efficient and sustainable manner possible.

The good news is that, in many cases, we already have most of what we need. New buildings increasingly hinge on sustainability, green credentials, and a human-first design, something the interconnectivity and intelligence of their tech positively supports. And older buildings, unlikely to be rebuilt to meet sustainability goals, can simply refocus, using technology they may already have to improve their environmental credentials, make life better for those within, and offer their data to the city as a whole.

Cameras as sensors

Before we go on, it is important to recalibrate one’s idea of a camera. A camera can transpose a view of one place onto a screen or storage device somewhere else, essential for the security function which no building can do without, but that is only now one possible use case. Cameras are powerful, flexible sensors. A 2MP camera collects over 2 million individual points of data in every frame, and today’s surveillance hardware can take that data and perform complex processing and analytics functions directly on the network edge.

As far as smart cities are concerned, edge processing is vital. They rely upon vast amounts of data and must reduce bandwidth and processing demands wherever possible in order to act in an efficient and responsive manner. If a camera can act as an IoT sensor, or if it can draw on powerful AI algorithms, it must. The insights network surveillance hardware can offer are some of the most important for a smart city to run smoothly. And everything begins at the building level.

Why build intelligent buildings?

Every building in a city counts. Office space, for example, makes up 68 percent of non-domestic electricity use; in London alone, the office space produces approximately 3 million tonnes of CO2 every year[1]. Cities looking to reach lofty sustainability goals must reduce this consumption wherever possible, and this begins by making such buildings intelligent. Through the data generated by surveillance cameras and other linked sensors, a building can know when parts of it are unoccupied and automatically switch off lighting and cooling or send IT equipment into standby – given that some studies show commercial buildings using 56 percent of their total energy out-of-hours[2], change is absolutely required.

Visual data can offer solutions to more complex problems, too. The solar heat gain from glazing, for example, can be vastly lowered if a camera does something as simple as detecting a certain light level in a certain spot. Intelligent analysis of this data could then cause a blind to be closed before the temperature rises. This saves on air conditioning costs, and has a knock-on effect to occupancy, allowing previously inhospitable areas of an office building to be made comfortable – and allowing other areas to remain dormant and unpowered until they are absolutely required.

Who needs smart cities?

Intelligent buildings are not just the building blocks of smart cities, they are the very foundation. Virtually every high-level system depends on them, because localised intelligence works: even an early smart building project, Zaragoza Smart City in Spain, was able to trim 30 percent from the operational costs of four key municipal locations by aligning and automating their functions to reduce energy use[3].

We are now five years on from Zaragoza’s success and under more pressure than ever to improve sustainability and lower energy consumption, whether following smart city ordinance or not. Thankfully businesses and even individuals do not have to wait for smart city initiatives to reach them. They can make a change whenever it makes sense. When it comes to finding and developing new and creative ways to manage buildings, nothing is out of reach. We have the technology in our cameras, our sensors, and our existing building management functions. We need only optimise it in the right way to help create smarter, safer cities.

For more information visit https://www.axis.com/en-gb/solutions/cities

Steven Kenny, Industry Liaison, Architecture & Engineering, Axis Communications
Steven Kenny has spent 18 years in the security sector in roles that have seen him take responsibility for key elements of mission critical, high-profile projects across a number of different vertical markets. For the past eight years he has focused his attentions on how security technologies can best support business security strategies, whilst driving the adoption and elevating the importance of cybersecurity and compliance for physical security practitioners. Steven’s current role sees him lead a team of Architect and Engineering managers across the EMEA region whilst supporting various industry associations and standards organisations. He currently sits on the EMEA Advisor Council as the emerging technology lead for TiNYg (Global Terrorism Information Network), and on various standards committees to support IoT security, as well as the BSI Private Security Management and Services.

About Axis Communications

Axis enables a smarter and safer world by creating solutions for improving security and business performance. As a network technology company and industry leader, Axis offers solutions in video surveillance, access control, intercom, and audio systems. They are enhanced by intelligent analytics applications and supported by high-quality training. Axis has around 4,000 dedicated employees in over 50 countries and collaborates with technology and system integration partners worldwide to deliver customer solutions. Axis was founded in 1984, and the headquarters are in Lund, Sweden.

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629621005594

[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378778809001893?via%3Dihub

[3] https://new.abb.com/news/detail/16297/abb-upgrades-landmark-buildings-in-zaragozas-smart-city-project-with-energy-monitoring-system