Disruptive technologies for smart cities - Smart sensors

Author: KISMC team

The article is a continuation of the series of articles for disruptive technologies for smart cities we started publishing in April 2020. It is the result of the ongoing Erasmus+ project Smart technologies by design (Smart by Design) and is based on the outputs produced by the project partners GAIA & DEUSTO and ARIES T.

 Current status

Smart Sensors are devices that are microprocessor driven and include features such as communication capability and on-board diagnostics which take input from the physical environment and use built-in compute resources to perform some predefined functions. They enable an accurate and automated collection of environmental data, avoiding noise. The main benefit of the Smart Sensors is the wealth of the information which they can collect improving the quality of measures and action implemented.

These systems are the basis to gather the complete knowledge of systems, subsystems, or components that will enable them to make optimal process control decisions. Smart Sensors are used for monitoring and control mechanisms in a wide variety of environments, like smart grids or science applications. These devices are especially important for the integration of the Internet of Things (IoT) as they are the indispensable enablers. Smart Sensors identify items, locate them, and determine their environmental conditions.

There are many different types of sensors that measure different magnitudes, like:

• Temperature
• Pressure
• Chemical
• Smoke
• Level 
• Motion detection
• Gyroscope 
• Optical 
• Proximity
• Water Quality
• Gas
• IR (Infrared)
• Image
• Accelerometer
• Humidity

Source: https://www.finoit.com/blog/top-15-sensor-types-used-iot/

Platforms

There are many types of sensors to measure lots of different environmental magnitudes. But here are some of the most important providers:

• Smart Citizen;
• STMicroelectronics;
• TE Connectivity
• NXP Semiconductors;
• Broadcom Limited;
• Robert Bosch
• Invensense;
• Infineon Technologies;
• Analog Devices;
• Arm Holdings;
• Omron;
• Sensirion;
• Smartthings;
• Konux;
• Texas Instruments Incorporated.

Existing standards

There are also innumerable standards related to sensors. But, those more related to “Smart Sensors” are the following ones:

• ISO/IEC 30101:2014 Sensor networks: Sensor network and its interfaces for the smart grid system
• ISO/IEC/IEEE 21450:2010 Smart transducer interface for sensors and actuators -- Common functions, communication protocols, and Transducer Electronic Data Sheet (TEDS) formats
• ISO/IEC/IEEE 21451-7:2011 Smart transducer interface for sensors and actuators -- Part 7: Transducer to radio frequency identification (RFID) systems communication protocols and Transducer Electronic Data Sheet (TEDS) formats
• ISO/IEC/IEEE 21451-4:2010 Smart transducer interface for sensors and actuators -- Part 4: Mixed-mode communication protocols and Transducer Electronic Data Sheet (TEDS) formats
• ISO/IEC/IEEE 21451-2:2010 Smart transducer interface for sensors and actuators -- Part 2: Transducer to microprocessor communication protocols and Transducer Electronic Data Sheet (TEDS) formats
• ISO/IEC/IEEE 21451-1:2010 Smart transducer interface for sensors and actuators -- Part 1: Network Capable Application Processor (NCAP) information model
• ISO/IEC 19794-8:2011 Biometric data interchange formats -- Part 8: Finger pattern skeletal data
• ISO/IEC 27019:2017 Security techniques -- Information security controls for the energy utility industry
• ISO/IEC 19794-8:2006 Biometric data interchange formats -- Part 8: Finger pattern skeletal data
• ISO 17363:2007 Supply chain applications of RFID -- Freight containers
• ISO/IEC TR 27019:2013 Security techniques -- Information security management guidelines based on ISO/IEC 27002 for process control systems specific to the energy utility industry
• ISO/IEC 15961-4:2016 Radio frequency identification (RFID) for item management: Data protocol -- Part 4: Application interface commands for battery assist and sensor functionality

Key applications

There is a huge range of different applications for Smart Sensors. Here are listed just some of them:

• Plants of warehouses: they can keep track of humidity and temperature, they can log data for historical records.
• Quality records
• Alarms or process management
• Industrial: in industries machines and equipment are monitored and controlled for pressure, temperature, humidity levels, or vibrations
• Automotive sector: communication between engines, transmission, breaking, and other controls
• Fingerprint recognition
• Pattern recognition
• Wireless telecommunications
• Smart Toys
• Biomedical applications like biochips, physio meters, micrometers, silicon technology for biological applications
• Smart cameras for security