Smart Cities

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The amount of data generated around the world has exploded. It’s available in volume and quality unmatched in human history. And this is just the beginning: the digital universe is growing at an exponential rate.

Our civil and environmental engineers are working to harness the potential of data with novel data collection techniques — from wireless sensors to unmanned aerial vehicles — while also creating new ways to process, analyze, visualize and use that information.

Take, for example, our urban infrastructure, which is among the most complex systems in the world. It mixes the various man-made systems (transportation, water, power and telecommunications) with natural systems (oceans, air, forests) as well as the social systems that enable our societies to function (everything from schools and the economy to the justice system and healthcare). Modeling these “systems-of-systems” will require managing data at an unprecedented scale.

That’s why CEEatGT researchers are imagining groundbreaking means of using the data we have — and the new forms of data we’re inventing — for the betterment of humanity and the environment.

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We are harnessing the potential of data to:

  • Create new ways of understanding our built environment and how it interfaces with the natural world.
  • Fundamentally change how we build and maintain the systems that enable our societies to function.
  • Instrument our interconnected infrastructure systems to assess their health and functionality.
  • Model future scenarios for city and regional infrastructure development
  • Enable people to make real-time decisions in economic development, transportation, energy-use, construction and beyond.