How can cities be developed in an intelligent, sustainable, and livable manner?

iCity: The “Smart City” is a research partnership that has been working since 2017 on innovative solutions, methods, services, and products to shape the livable, intelligent, and sustainable city of the future (LINstadt).
The city of the future will increasingly be defined by digitalization and connectivity, utilizing resources efficiently, implementing smart mobility solutions, and ensuring that its infrastructure is largely powered by renewable energy through grid-connected systems. Furthermore, it will be characterized by inclusivity, connectivity, and flexibility. In addition to technological aspects, modern concepts of smart cities are increasingly focusing on the human element and improving quality of life.

The UDigiT4iCity initiative explores current challenges in the acquisition, processing, integration, provision, and utilization of urban data. The overarching goal of this impulse project is to develop, test, and evaluate future-proof methods and applications for urban digital twins.

As part of subproject 1: Data Platform for Urban Digital Twins, the Open Urban Data Platform will be further developed to support the visualization of three-dimensional data, including city models, simulations, and sensor data. Subproject 2: Integration of Public Buildings and Infrastructure will focus on capturing, integrating, and utilizing Internet of Things (IoT) data from urban buildings and making it available for smart city platforms. Subproject 3: 5G-Pilot Applications for the Smart City will investigate the feasibility of 5G technology for urban sensor networks. Additionally, subproject 4: Classification and Segmentation of Buildings in Mesh Models will develop an automated method for classifying and segmenting buildings in textured 3D mesh models to enable efficient processing of large-scale 3D city models.

Approach: Following the foundational research conducted in the ICT4iCity project, the current focus is on piloting and practical implementation.

Let´s have a look at the Subprojects

Subproject 1: A data platform leveraging various APIs (RESTful OGC API, SimStadt API) will be established as a foundation for detailed environmental simulations.
Subproject 2: Prototypical IoT applications (e.g., energy monitoring, utilization of public resources) will be implemented for smart public buildings and infrastructure, integrated into smart city platforms, and evaluated.
Subproject 3: The development of 5G demonstrators and their evaluation based on key performance indicators (KPIs) within the campus networks of industry partners will be conducted, including an assessment of 5G accuracy for positioning.
Subproject 4: Deep learning techniques will be applied to classify buildings based on textured and triangulated 3D mesh models.

Expected Outcomes: The subprojects will consistently rely on open-source and open-data approaches to maximize acceptance in this highly diverse application domain, thereby promoting widespread adoption beyond the scope of the project itself.