Aveiro Tech City Living Lab: A Communication, Sensing and Computing Platform for City Environments

Abstract

This article presents the deployment and experimentation architecture of the Aveiro Tech City Living Lab (ATCLL) in Aveiro, Portugal. This platform comprises a large number of Internet-of-things devices with communication, sensing and computing capabilities. The communication infrastructure, built on fiber and Millimeter-wave (mmWave) links, integrates a communication network with radio terminals (WiFi, ITS-G5, C-V2X, 5G and LoRa(WAN)), multiprotocol, spread throughout 44 connected points of access in the city. Additionally, public transportation has also been equipped with communication and sensing units. All these points combine and interconnect a set of sensors, such as mobility (Radars, Lidars, video cameras) and environmental sensors. Combining edge computing and cloud management to deploy the services and manage the platform, and a data platform to gather and process the data, the living lab supports a wide range of services and applications: Internet-of-things, intelligent transportation systems and assisted driving, environmental monitoring, emergency and safety, among others. This article describes the architecture, implementation and deployment to make the overall platform to work and integrate researchers and citizens. Moreover, it showcases some examples of the performance metrics achieved in the city infrastructure, the data that can be collected, visualized and used to build services and applications to the cities, and, finally, different use cases in the mobility and safety scenarios.

Disaggregated Mobile Core for Edge City Services

“…Hence why, having an already ready cellular infrastructure to support a SG capable of such control will ease future deployments of new services and objectives. This infrastructure can be followed for a more precise consultation in [53].…”

Sensors Network as an Added Value for the Characterization of Spatial and Temporal Air Quality Patterns at the Urban Scale

“…Additionally, studies (e.g., Borrego et al, 2018 [ 2 ] and Castell et al, 2016 [ 11 ]) have compared the performance of air quality sensors with reference measurements, exhibiting the sensors’ ability to perform measurements within the range of errors of indicative measures. Several communities and web platforms are currently available, aiming to bring together communities in a specific neighbourhood, city, region or country [ 16 ], such as the Aveiro STEAM City project ( , accessed on 23 October 2022) [ 17 ]. This project aims at creating a smart city to implement and enhance policies focused on urban mobility, energy and the quality of the environment.…”