NOVEMBER 2018CIOAPPLICATIONSEUROPE.COM 19How Robotics pave the way for Autonomous Infrastructuresgood tradeoff for better and more accurate leak detection at affordable cost, plus a great potential for leak repair, by a simple but powerful change in measurement concept: moving from Space Sampling/Continuous Time to Time Sampling/Continuous Space.Swarms of autonomous submarine drones can continuously travel and videotape the pipes from the inside and park sometimes for sending data and charging batteries. Equipped with light, camera and locator system, they can easily compare the internal surface of the pipe between two passages and detect when a leak is starting. Those drones can also be equipped with a robotized arm and a system to repair leaks, and then you come with a self-repairable pipe.This example shows how robots can help to make infrastructures autonomous. This new concept­shorten as much as possible the feedback loop-can be applied to any sort of infrastructure, pushing efficiency to its maximum. It also introduces a business risk: the value added by the infrastructure operator can partly shift to the infrastructure itself.Another important characteristic of urban infrastructures is their ability to share information related to a unique context: the city territory. For example, all urban vehicles can contribute to video surveillance thanks to sensors fusion and cameras put on top of all vehicles (Post office, waste collection, busses, cleaning vehicles...) making an extensive footprint in the city. Autonomous vehicles could then be used to maximize the global efficiency of the city across all infrastructures, by marginally automatically modify the trip of any vehicle. The concept can be extended to the use of vehicles dedicated to a given service for another service: for example, reverse logistics (using delivery trucks to bring back some waste materials) is being tested in different places. Autonomous robots, thanks to their versatility, will support the global integration of all infrastructure components of the city and will call for a unique "City Command Center" that will maximize resources pooling more efficiently than just data pooling.At last, the optimal solution to our environmental problems would probably have to involve all stakeholders, including city dwellers. Size of the population being part of the problem, it should be part of the solution. A best existing example is solar electricity in India: individuals buy solar panels thus decentralizing production of electricity and relaxing constraint on the global energy network. Many other examples will come in the coming years, based on the availability of personal water treatment units, personal drinking water production units, small urban farm modules, multi-task companion robots, autonomous cars and the like. The nature of infrastructures will consequently be altered, from vertical end-to-end service delivery channels to horizontal multi-services platforms whose ownership (public authorities, private companies) is not very clear in the long term.In conclusion, urban environmental services will face major changes when IOT, AI, and autonomous robots become massively available. Infrastructures will be made autonomous and versatile, globally managed under a unique city command center that will have to act as a federation of platforms, creating the risk of having both infrastructure operators and public authorities being disrupted. Recent history showed the potential impact of poor governance and absence of ethics in the development of new digital businesses and their consequences for citizens. Smart regulation could then make a significant contribution to harmonious, balanced and sustainable development for the urban territories where 70 percent of the human population is going to live.
< Page 9 | Page 11 >