Turning Amsterdam Into A Smart City

About a quarter of Amsterdam’s surface area is water, with 165 canals winding alongside city streets. Self-driving technologies can save time, costs and energy, and improve the city moving forward. 

MIT researchers are trying to build a fleet of autonomous robotic boats, rectangular hulls equipped with sensors, thrusters, microcontrollers, GPS modules, cameras, and other hardware, that provides intelligent mobility on water to relieve congestion in the Amsterdam’s busy canals.

This smart city solution will include the autonomous boats that will cruise the canals to transport goods and people, collect trash, or self-assemble into floating stages and bridges. 

To further that vision, MIT researchers have given new capabilities to their fleet of robotic boats, which are being developed as part of an ongoing project, that lets them target and clasp onto each other, and keep trying if they fail.
The Roboat project is carried out in cooperation with the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS Institute). 

The objectives are to create units that provide on-demand transportation on waterways and use the roboat units to automatically form “pop-up” structures, such as foot bridges, performance stages, or even food markets. The structures could then automatically disassemble at set times and reform into target structures for different activities. The rowboat units could also be used as agile sensors to gather data on the city’s infrastructure, and air and water quality, etc.

The researchers tested the latching technique in a swimming pool at MIT and in the Charles River, where waters are rougher. In both instances, the roboat units were usually able to successfully connect in about 10 seconds, starting from around 1 meter away, or they succeeded after a few failed attempts.

In Amsterdam, the system could be especially useful for overnight garbage collection. Roboat units could sail around a canal, locate and latch onto platforms holding trash containers, and haul them back to collection facilities. Each roboat is equipped with latching mechanisms, including ball and socket components, on its front, back, and sides. The ball component resembles a badminton shuttlecock, a cone-shaped, rubber body with a metal ball at the end. The socket component is a wide funnel that guides the ball component into a receptor. 

Inside the funnel, a laser beam acts like a security system that detects when the ball crosses into the receptor. That activates a mechanism with three arms that closes around and captures the ball, while also sending a feedback signal to both roboats that the connection is complete, as reported by MIT.

On the software side, the roboats run on custom computer vision and control techniques. Each roboat has a LIDAR system and camera, so they can autonomously move from point to point around the canals. 

Each docking station, typically an unmoving roboat, has a sheet of paper imprinted with an augmented reality tag, called an AprilTag, which resembles a simplified QR code. Commonly used for robotic applications, AprilTags enable robots to detect and compute their precise 3-D position and orientation relative to the tag.

Both the AprilTags and cameras are located in the same locations in center of the roboats. When a traveling rowboat is roughly one or two meters away from the stationary AprilTag, the roboat calculates its position and orientation to the tag.

I-HLS

You Might Also Read:

Montreal’s Future In Smart Sensors And AI:

Dubai: Internet City:

 

« Florida Municipality Suffers Cyber Extortion
Spies Use AI-Generated Faces To Connect With Targets »

CyberSecurity Jobsite
Perimeter 81

Directory of Suppliers

LockLizard

LockLizard

Locklizard provides PDF DRM software that protects PDF documents from unauthorized access and misuse. Share and sell documents securely - prevent document leakage, sharing and piracy.

NordLayer

NordLayer

NordLayer is an adaptive network access security solution for modern businesses — from the world’s most trusted cybersecurity brand, Nord Security. 

Practice Labs

Practice Labs

Practice Labs is an IT competency hub, where live-lab environments give access to real equipment for hands-on practice of essential cybersecurity skills.

Cyber Security Supplier Directory

Cyber Security Supplier Directory

Our Supplier Directory lists 6,000+ specialist cyber security service providers in 128 countries worldwide. IS YOUR ORGANISATION LISTED?

CYRIN

CYRIN

CYRIN® Cyber Range. Real Tools, Real Attacks, Real Scenarios. See why leading educational institutions and companies in the U.S. have begun to adopt the CYRIN® system.

Serena

Serena

Serena Software helps increase speed of the software development lifecycle while enhancing security, compliance, and performance.

CloudSigma

CloudSigma

CloudSigma, a pure-cloud IaaS provider offers flexible and innovative cloud hosting solutions for companies of all sizes both in Europe and the US.

National Agency for the Security of Information Systems (ANSSI) - France

National Agency for the Security of Information Systems (ANSSI) - France

The role of Agence Nationale de la Sécurité des Systèmes d'Information (ANSSI) is to foster a coordinated, ambitious, pro-active response to cybersecurity issues in France.

Continuum

Continuum

Continuum is the IT management platform company that allows Managed IT Services Providers to maintain and back up on-premise and cloud-based servers, desktops, mobile devices and other endpoints

Cyber DriveWare

Cyber DriveWare

DriveWare analyzes new traffic in the I/O layer and blocks malware and cyber attacks which organizations have no means to protect against.

Build38

Build38

Build38 provides the highest levels of security for mobile applications.

TestArmy

TestArmy

TestArmy CyberForces provide you with a broad spectrum of cybersecurity services to test every aspect of your IT infrastructure security and software development process.

StrikeReady

StrikeReady

StrikeReady have developed CARA, an advanced technology solution that offers personalized and proactive assessment and remediation of future and current risk in real-time.

Cubro Network Visibility

Cubro Network Visibility

Cubro network visibility solutions remove network monitoring ‘blind spots’ to provide enhanced visibility and control of all data transiting a company’s network.

ZARIOT

ZARIOT

ZARIOT's mission is to restore order to what is becoming connected chaos in IoT by bringing unrivalled security, control and quality of service.

KSOC Labs

KSOC Labs

KSOC is an event-driven SaaS platform built to automatically remediate Kubernetes security risks.

iSTORM

iSTORM

iStorm specialise in supporting organisations who require a range of Privacy, Security and Penetration testing related services.

Apollo Information Systems

Apollo Information Systems

Apollo is a value-added reseller that provides our clients with the complete set of cybersecurity and networking services and solutions.

Aeries Technology

Aeries Technology

Aeries is a technology services organization offering capabilities in Technology Services, Digital Transformation, and Business Process Management.

CommandK

CommandK

CommandK provides companies with infrastructure to protect their sensitive data. Built-in solutions to prevent data-leaks and simplify governance.

Washington Technology Solutions (WaTech)

Washington Technology Solutions (WaTech)

WaTech operates the state’s core technology infrastructure – the central network and data center, provides strategic direction for cybersecurity and protects state networks from growing cyber threats.