Great interest in Smart Villages 3D model
The Project Smart Public Environments (AS) in progress from autumn 2017 to the end of 2020. In it, Smart Villages in Veberöd tested sensors in a small community and showed that sensors can be used to create a smart village to complement the smart city. In Veberöd, among other things, the cows' watersheds, private bicycles and the nursery's trees were connected. During the project, a 3D model of the village, and it is used as a digital twin. The vision is for villagers to be able to communicate through the model. Already, operators can access sensor data in real time through the platform.
- Visualizing in 3D makes many more people understand, says Jan Malmgren at Smart Villages. Tell a hundred people that “We're going to build blocks of brick,” and you'll likely have a hundred different opinions. Visualization significantly improves communication, which benefits democracy processes and more. If you can then make a digital twin, you can start researching what makes a village sustainable. And having multiple researchers openly look at the same digital twin, I think, increases objectivity and creates a foundation for everyone's well-being.
The model that was built opened up completely new possibilities. The digital twin is now being used as an offering to universities and colleges to conduct research in the village. The aim is for students and researchers to be able to connect sensors and conduct experiments that they can follow both on site and in the digital twin remotely. In return, the village receives data that can bring interesting knowledge that is expected to lay the foundation for increased sustainability both in Veberöd and in other communities. Spring 2021 gave University of Kristianstad the opportunity for students on some courses in sensor technology to conduct experiments in Veberöd, including measurements of how much a playground was used and of air pollution.
The work on the digital model was noticed both nationally by IoT Sweden and internationally by Boston University. The latter saw an opportunity to study Social Sustainability in a Smart Village based on the data found in the digital twin. Veberöd became one of sixteen organizations to be included in the Red Hat Collaboratory Research Incubation Award. The researchers from Boston University are collaborating with Smart Villages to create a global and open research platform where they can investigate the link between well-being and climate-smart communities. To study social sustainability, the researchers will utilize real data from Veberöd in a virtual village. This also allows the researchers to simulate how different technologies might affect the real village.
Ängelholm Municipality also discovered the digital twin and has started a Collaboration with Smart Villages for to learn more about how to capture values from sensors in a 3D model. Through this, Ängelholm Municipality will get help both with technology development and with how technology will benefit residents. Read more in Ängelholm Municipality's press release.
At the same time, Veberöd has several different mobility projects, and the data created is of course also presented in the digital twin. On Dörrödsvägen both are measured the number of cars and their speeds Together with Future by Lund and AXIS in the FLOW/LOSC projects, together with Univrses, Smart Villages is testing a new method for mapping the status of the roadways, and in some future projects Skånetrafiken buses will appear in the digital twin, but it will also investigate whether public transport in smaller units can work to create an opportunity for travellers to socialise.
More projects in Veberöd
SOM II, sub-project: Smart villages provide new perspective
SOM II, sub-project: Korna's waterho gets smart
SOM II, sub-project: Bicycle tracking and theft protection
In the picture Jan Malmgren and Emma Axklo in front of a screen showing the digital twin.