We discuss the following topics in this blog:
- High-tech, digitally connected, utopic cities.
- How ‘Smart’ has Kakinada Streets Become?
- Advanced civic infrastructure Technologies designed and deployed by STL.
- Deployment of smart lights has enabled energy conservation.
In addition to these topics, we shall also be answering the following FAQs:
- What is WiFi?
- What is an Optical Fibre Cable?
Contents
Kakinada- How Did it Turn from an Idyllic Coastal Town to a Smart City?
When you think ‘Smart City’, what comes to your mind?
High-tech, digitally connected, utopic cities – a reality only in technologically advanced countries.
When you think ‘Smart City in India’….? What comes to your mind?
A distant dream!!
In that case, you should visit a small coastal city down south named Kakinada.
Never heard of it?
It’s in Andhra Pradesh. And it is the utopic reality of what a ‘Smart City’ looks like.
Up until two years back, Kakinada was just a simple, idyllic coastal town of farmers and fishermen, reliant on the Godavari delta for their living. A respite from the humid weather generally consisted of a walk under the breezy green canopies of its 20-acre park or watching a movie in one of many cinema halls it has.
It was only after being chosen to be among the first 20 Indian cities that would be transformed into smart cities, that this town underwent a major digital makeover.
Today, Kakinada’s 3.25 lakh residents proudly flaunt their digital edge with Wi-Fi and app access, digitally monitored citizen safety, smart parking,, access to administrative services, smart lighting, e-challan, CCTV surveillance and many more with STL’s cutting-edge Smart City applications.
So, how ‘Smart’ has Kakinada Streets Become?
STL’s Kakinada Smart City boasts of a state-of-the-art Centralised Command and Control Centre (CCC), 330 Surveillance cameras, 380 Wi-Fi Access points, 320Smart lights, 10 Face recognition systems, 30 Public Address systems, 24 Emergency Calling Box, Disaster management system, 12 Environmental sensors, and other applications. All these elements represent a design-thinking approach to digitally enhance the governance and functioning of the city.
Here is a glimpse of how it impacts the day to day lives of citizens:
Absolute calm in times of catastrophe
Being a coastal town, Kakinada is prone to cyclones. Advanced civic infrastructure Technologies designed and deployed by STL has helped Kakinada administration to maintain order during the recent Phethai and Phani cyclones. The Kakinada Municipal Corporation (KMC) could effectively use environmental monitoring to keep citizens updated through live warning messages on public address system and variable messaging screens across the city.
Intelligent edge on law and order management
Equipped with STL’s end to end safety ecosystem that consists of surveillance cameras, advanced face recognition technology, video analytics and automatic alerts, safety and security has a new definition. The Smart City surveillance has helped the Police Department in detecting crimes, ensuring faster resolution rates, in reducing road accident casualties and traffic violations.,
Bridging the gap between administration and citizens
Most of the times, people do not benefit from government initiatives because they are not aware of them. The KMC officials have started using variable message display system to create awareness regarding their announcements.
Maintaining detailed analysis of city records
Smart solutions incorporated by STL enable automatic analysis of government data to have a detailed tax collection trend and list out tax defaulters. This drastically reduced the need for manual intervention and tampering of data. The same can be applied to various other government records and citizen profiles to create a robust governance model.
Being ecologically smart
Deployment of smart lights has enabled energy conservation. Smart lighting solutions have been deployed with centralised controls to conserve energy and ensure that the city is well lit at all times. Apart from this, STL’s IoT driven waste management ecosystem effectively handles garbage collection and disposal system with 110 smart bins and auto-collection mechanisms to make Kakinada ‘Swachh’.
Intelligent smart city design and seamless execution and operations are creating tangible impact in improving connectivity, mobility, situational awareness and safety. This is what we call –‘transforming everyday living through smarter networks”!
FAQs
What is WiFi?
Put simply, WiFi is a technology that uses radio waves to create a wireless network through which devices like mobile phones, computers, printers, etc., connect to the internet. A wireless router is needed to establish a WiFi hotspot that people in its vicinity may use to access internet services. You’re sure to have encountered such a WiFi hotspot in houses, offices, restaurants, etc.
To get a little more technical, WiFi works by enabling a Wireless Local Area Network or WLAN that allows devices connected to it to exchange signals with the internet via a router. The frequencies of these signals are either 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz bandwidths. These frequencies are much higher than those transmitted to or by radios, mobile phones, and televisions since WiFi signals need to carry significantly higher amounts of data. The networking standards are variants of 802.11, of which there are several (802.11a, 802.11b, 801.11g, etc.).
What is an Optical Fibre Cable?
An optical fibre cable is a cable type that has a few to hundreds of optical fibres bundled together within a protective plastic coating. They help carry digital data in the form of light pulses across large distances at faster speeds. For this, they need to be installed or deployed either underground or aerially. Standalone fibres cannot be buried or hanged so fibres are bunched together as cables for the transmission of data.
This is done to protect the fibre from stress, moisture, temperature changes and other externalities. There are three main components of a optical fibre cable, core (It carries the light and is made of pure silicon dioxide (SiO2) with dopants such as germania, phosphorous pentoxide, or alumina to raise the refractive index; Typical glass cores range from as small as 3.7um up to 200um), Cladding (Cladding surrounds the core and has a lower refractive index than the core, it is also made from the same material as the core; 1% refractive index difference is maintained between the core and cladding; Two commonly used diameters are 125µm and 140µm) and Coating (Protective layer that absorbs shocks, physical damage and moisture; The outside diameter of the coating is typically either 250µm or 500µm; Commonly used material for coatings are acrylate,Silicone, carbon, and polyimide).
An optical fibre cable is made up of the following components: Optical fibres – ranging from one to many. Buffer tubes (with different settings), for protection and cushioning of the fibre. Water protection in the tubes – wet or dry. A central strength member (CSM) is the backbone of all cables. Armoured tapes for stranding to bunch the buffer tubes and strength members together. Sheathing or final covering to provide further protection.
The five main reasons that make this technology innovation disruptive are fast communication speed, infinite bandwidth & capacity, low interference, high tensile strength and secure communication. The major usescases of optical fibre cables include intenet connectivity, computer networking, surgery & dentistry, automotive industry, telephony, lighting & decorations, mechanical inspections, cable television, military applications and space.
