Collecting and Visualizing Real Time Environment Data in the City of Charlottetown

A presentation to the Atlantic Association of Planning Technicians Annual Meeting on June 12, 2019 in Sackville, NB.

Transcript

1. Collecting and Visualizing
   Real Time Environment Data
   in the City of Charlottetown
   Atlantic Association of Planning Technicians
   
   June 12, 2019
   
   Peter Rukavina
   
   Reinvented Inc., Charlottetown
   
   https://ruk.ca/
   
   

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2. The Story Begins
   I became interested in
   where we get our electricity
   on Prince Edward Island.
   

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3. Electricity Flow
   

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6. https://tso.nbpower.com/Public/en/SystemInformation_realtime.asp
   

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9. Golf at 50BPM by user707748013
   50 MW
   50 BPM
   

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10. W&W - Bigfoot (Uriel M Deephouse Remix) by urielm
    122 MW
    122 BPM
    

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11. Wind Energy
    

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16. 155% of our electricity
    load from the wind
    10:30 p.m. 7:30 a.m.
    8 Hours
    

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19. Home Electricity 

    and Water
    

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31. Taking Stock
    

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32. • Sensors are cheap, and there are a lot of things
    we can measure.
    
    • Being peripherally aware of things we can
    measure can positively alter our behaviour.
    
    • Data communication via wifi is a technical and
    support challenge, and doesn’t scale.
    

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33. Measure Your City
    

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40. LoRaWAN
    • LoRa = Long Range (and low power)
    
    • LoRaWAN is a networking protocol for connecting
    gateways and devices.
    
    • Excellent for transmitting small amounts of data over
    long distances with little power.
    
    • Helps solve the “data communication over wifi is a
    customer support nightmare” issue.
    
    • Helps solve the “wifi devices use a lot of power” issue.
    

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44. SNACKS
    Sensor Network Around Charlottetown’s Key Surroundings
    

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53. SNACKS Stack
    • Sensor nodes (low-powered Arduino boards) broadcast
    readings, which are picked up by strategically-placed The
    Things Network gateways.
    
    • Gateways send readings to The Things Network.
    
    • Application on The Things Network sends readings to
    Amazon IoT service where they are archived in a
    database.
    
    • A web application visualizes the archived readings.
    

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55. SNACKS Challenges
    • Battery management in off-the-shelf LoRaWAN-equipped
    Arduino devices isn’t great (~2 weeks battery life or less).
    
    • “Onboarding” a new sensor node is more complicated
    than it needs to be.
    
    • Visualization technique hasn’t been real-world-tested yet,
    so we don’t know if it’s optimal.
    

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56. SNACKS Next
    • Work on battery life issues (possibly adopting
    Amersfoort’s custom board).
    
    • Look at a broader range of sensors (particulate matter,
    solar radiation, radon, sound, etc.)
    
    • Explore the possibilities of using LoRaWAN to manage
    water and electricity meters at scale.
    
    • Roll out devices to citizens and start to gather data.
    
    • Continue to be curious.
    

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57. Thank you.
    Slides at https://l.ruk.ca/aapt
    

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