As municipalities consider the wave of advanced capabilities that can be embedded in smart city streetlights, they will exchange best practices. Cities don’t compete against each other when it comes to technology disruption. They are eager to share.
As they develop regulations and transparent policies (and put them in writing) related to video capture and storage, data access protocols, public safety and the digital rights of citizens, the interest in deploying some form of connected LED streetlights as a catalyst to smart city programs will rise.
Commercial and industrial property owners, office parks, universities and other private entities with large parking lots, loading docks and campus environments are free to seek out innovative solutions that include overt security applications (meaning: surveillance). These private installations may not have the vast control capabilities of citywide installations, but they are worth studying as pure technology testbeds.
Meanwhile, the cost savings from LED-based systems is too great for cities to ignore. The unprecedented LED upgrade cycle in the public sector will continue, and with it the opportunity to create modular streetlight architectures that can accommodate new services as they become accepted (and acceptable) along the evolutionary path to smart cities.
Microchip’s technology experts can help you better understand connected streetlights and embedded wireless connectivity, smart embedded vision, mobile broadband gateways, lighting technology, Power-over-Ethernet (PoE), sensor integration, microcontroller selection, power and energy consumption, onboard memory, FPGA design, security and other key considerations for smart city streetlights.
