The project thurAI is an innovative solution for the detection of flickering or defective street lamps. Sometimes it takes several weeks before a defective street light can be repaired. There are several reasons for this. Not every flickering lantern is immediately reported to the responsible authority. Most residents of the city would also not even know whom to contact. However, if a defect is known, city employees must first search for the fault in order to be able to fix it.
Although there are now streetlights that can report defects to a control center, these are very expensive. For this, the complete lamps would have to be replaced with new ones. Hardly any city can afford the associated costs. Therefore, the search was on for an inexpensive solution for retrofitting. This solution has now been found and is being put into practice with the thurAI project.
A retrofittable and radio-based sensor system is used
The IMMS, which is the Institute for Microelectronic and Mechatronic Systems, has developed a prototype. This involves sensors that are mounted directly next to street lamps. These measure the local lighting conditions as well as the light emitted by the street lamps.
Intervals are set at which the examinations take place. This creates a complete monitoring system. The data collected in this way is sent to a microcontroller, from where it is transmitted via modern wireless technology to a gateway, i.e. a receiving unit.
LoRaWan is used for wireless radio transmission. This is the abbreviation for Long Range Wide Area Network. The advantage of this modern transmission technology is that the signals can be sent over long distances. Therefore, the transmission takes place without the use of the vulnerable cellular network. It is therefore secure and reliable.
The thurAI project is a team effort
Since this is an innovative project with high potential for future developments, it was implemented by several participants.
The following institutions are involved:
- Ilmenau University of Technology
- Friedrich Schiller University Jena
- IMMS
The IMMS and the Technical University of Ilmenau have been working on the so-called SmartCity for quite some time. This is a networking of all important things that are important for a functioning city. Currently, research and work is being done at the LivingLab. In the field of SmartCity, it is an interesting development that involves the task of combining various AI-based services. Of course, extensive monitoring also plays an important role in this.
Without continuous monitoring and evaluation, it would not be possible to see which measures have been successfully implemented. This project thurAI is primarily about showing perspectives for the future.
IMMS GmbH successfully starts monitoring of street lamps
Since the project thurAI is primarily about the monitoring of street lanterns, a good start has already been made. Especially in the field of infrastructure, the requirements for high functionality are constantly increasing. That is why it is important to promote such innovative projects.
