The introduction of sensors and the Internet of Things (IoT) kick-started the move toward optimizing a wide range of industries, including city planning and infrastructure management. The electricity grid, transit systems, traffic lights, garbage services, and more are all municipal operations that can be made “smarter” by merging physical infrastructure with digital connectivity. Additionally, optimized smart city operations are often also energy-efficient, which is an essential cornerstone of sustainability and key to meeting carbon neutrality requirements.
The momentum toward smart cities is growing, with a projected market size of US$6.782 trillion by 2032. As this blog explores, this growth brings with it a shift in the roles of engineers.
How Smart Cities Are Changing Engineering
A successful smart city needs well-planned orchestration from engineers. Because smart cities rely on relatively new technologies, their impact on engineering continues to evolve. The following are just a few ways in which smart cities are stretching traditional expectations of engineering jobs and even defining new ones in the process.
Increase in Interdisciplinary Roles
To create smart city solutions, engineers need a broader knowledge base, drawing from disciplines such as civil, environmental, electrical, and computer engineering, among others. Engineers will need to work not just with other engineers but also with urban planners, policymakers, and government agencies to understand all the necessary parameters and develop cost-effective and reliable solutions that align with these frameworks.
Hardware-Only to IT/OT Integration
With the widespread adoption of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), engineers must understand how digitization can drive efficiency in physical infrastructure, from traffic lights to trash bins to bridges. Smart cities are also pushing engineers to understand how to modernize legacy infrastructure while keeping within budget constraints and complying with government regulations.
Spotlight on Sustainability
As urban hubs become increasingly dense, citizens need to optimize the use of scarce natural resources such as water. Therefore, urban design needs to adapt to changing climate conditions to decrease impacts on both citizens and infrastructure.
Redesigned Lifecycle Management
The maintenance protocols for traditional municipal infrastructure are well established. The layering of digital technologies introduces new areas of ongoing maintenance, which are especially critical. Cybersecurity, for example, is a priority, as cyberattacks can debilitate entire infrastructures and hold city governments hostage.
Engineering Jobs for Smart Cities
A smart city will need many kinds of engineering disciplines to build an efficient system, including the following:
Cybersecurity Engineering
Cybersecurity engineers ensure the fortifications of networks and protect sensitive data. Threat monitoring is a fundamental aspect of cybersecurity, one that artificial intelligence (AI) helps execute. For example, AI monitoring can detect anomalies in routine network traffic that may indicate a cyberattack.
Traffic Engineering
Intelligent transportation systems and smart traffic lights enable technologies such as vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication. Such intelligent systems could route traffic efficiently, resulting in a more seamless flow and fewer jams.
Automotive Engineering
The growth of autonomous driving and sophisticated advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) is reshaping the role of automotive engineering. Engineers must rewrite the rules for machine-to-machine communication protocols to accommodate rapid advances in the fields of micromobility and last-mile transportation systems in smart cities.
Environmental Engineering
With extreme weather events becoming increasingly common and a global push toward achieving carbon neutrality, engineers will need to find innovative approaches that improve the resilience of urban infrastructure. These solutions will also need to ensure citizens’ safety by monitoring air and water quality, as well as other public goods.
Electrical Engineering
As renewable energy sources integrate more tightly into grid networks, smart cities will need electrical and power engineers who can work with the complexities of distributed energy models. These engineers will also need to know how to improve the resilience of legacy grid infrastructure to ensure continuous service.
Computer and Software Engineering
As urban infrastructure becomes digitally connected, software engineers will need to integrate disparate networks and data sources into a centralized platform for easy data aggregation and analysis. Organizations working to optimize smart cities frequently employ digital twins—digital replicas of physical infrastructure—which software engineers help develop and analyze.
Data and AI Engineering
The enormous amount of IIoT data being siphoned from physical infrastructure to aggregators facilitates AI-driven optimization. Since data is vital currency for informed insights, data and AI engineers create predictive maintenance algorithms that keep equipment functioning, demand forecasting models for utilities, and programs for other areas of optimization.
User Design Engineering
Citizens are an important component of a smart city and are crucial to its success. Many smart city initiatives, such as demand-response energy consumption programs, rely on citizen engagement. But citizens will participate only if doing so is easy. User design engineers ensure ease of use through gamified applications while ensuring the privacy of sensitive data to allay citizens’ concerns.
Conclusion
Smart cities face enormous pressure from rapid population growth, aging infrastructure, and evolving environmental conditions. Engineers can play a crucial role in addressing these issues, but it will require a shift in traditional engineering roles.
Because smart cities fuse physical infrastructure with digital intelligence, successful smart city design requires interdisciplinary collaboration, where civil, electrical, environmental, and software engineering converge with the integration of information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT), as well as robust cybersecurity. In short, smart cities are rewriting the engineering playbook, creating opportunities at the intersection of technology and urban living.
Source: Mouser blog
