Project State
By the end of 2016, the CitiSim project started, and during this time many things have happened, both in managerial and technical aspects. From a detailed proposal with many good ideas, a high-level design and a good knowledge of the State-of-the-Art, to the current fully functional architecture with a prototype, tons of research and development activities and some relevant innovations, CitiSim confirms its position as a cutting-edge project, with an increasing interest of new partners, municipalities and other ITEA projects aiming to collaborate as well as other third-parties like private companies (apart from the international consortium) to contribute and to join the CitiSim ecosystem.
At this moment, all the development tasks are on time, with all the deliverables released according to the plan. A significant effort has been invested on having a clear reference architecture, integrating developments and technologies from all the partners. For this reason, having a fully functional reference implementation of the CitiSim architecture with a modular backend (using Docker), is allowing to simplify the deployment of the platform, as well as to accelerate the market access. In conjunction with a fully functional prototype representing a city with its 3D virtual model, they are allowing to introduce CitiSim to public and private organisms and companies, showing a clear idea of the project and its innovative possibilities, involving higher chances of success on impacting the market.
The development of Open Source components like several adapters to integrate CitiSim with MQTT and Kafka-based platforms and devices like Libelium and WDP, is another excellent example of an ecosystem open to third-party developments and capable of coexisting with other commercial and non-commercial solutions.
A set of Smart Services has been defined having a clear focus on creating products capable to add value, to engage the various stakeholders and to really impact in market: A Smart Mobility service, a Complex Event Processor, a Visual Wiki, several Smart Energy-related services, a Citizen Reporting mechanism and a Smart Semantic Search service, all of them integrating technologies from all the partners. Additionally, a modular security layer is being developed to secure communication among services.
Also, during this period, a service description language has been created and successfully tested using a prototype of automatic service composition. For this reason, that prototype is another of the milestones already reached.
Another important point has been the creation of several simulation models for Smart Traffic, crowd and people behavior, as well as several urban models for the smart city, with significant developments on data visualization using 2D/3D technologies. In that sense, a first version of the software developed using Microsoft HoloLens™ has been released. This Augmented Reality application allows the user to navigate inside a building, to retrieve real-time information of the building and to access to any audiovisual support in emergency situations (first aid explanations, advice for fires and evacuation plans among others). This software, integrated with a Multimedia Distribution Platform (named Visual Wiki) and a system like CitiSim, retrieves sensor and people information from CitiSim Smart Services and Urban Model Services through the network.
So far, all the partners have demonstrated an increasing commitment to the project, and good examples are the dissemination and exploitation activities, which have created a real interest in the project. To maximize the dissemination, exploitation and standardization strategy of the project, during the last semester the CitiSim consortium has carried out several activities as follows: participated at five trade-shows, three conferences and eight articles were presented (apart from previous actions). New papers are already pending on confirmation, and several products are being developed. Additionally, several articles and videos have been released in the project website; CitiSim has been introduced in multiple events, and new City Councils, companies and other ITEA projects are being contacted, increasing the visibility and interest towards the project. As a result, the collaboration between the ITEA3 ESTABLISH and CitiSim projects has been accepted, and it is being defined, several municipalities are interested in the project, and a new Turkish consortium is joining the project, including five companies, several Universities and research centers, and a municipality. New activities of standardization bodies are in progress too.
As a conclusion, the CitiSim project is currently on track, with a reliable and experienced group of partners very committed and a clear focus on market and business. Use cases like Smart Emergencies and Smart Mobility are just the tip of the iceberg within a more ambitious strategy around Smart Cities, IoT, AR/VR, Big Data and Data Visualization.
To be continue…