Georgia Institute of Technology School of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Researchers from Georgia Tech have been awarded a $2.5 million National Science Foundation Smart and Connected Communities Grant to develop systems that will improve travel mobility, safety, equity, and sustainability using the city of Peachtree Corners, Ga., as an immersive living lab.

Georgia Tech has announced the four communities that will be part of the 2020 Georgia Smart cohort—with three of the four projects led by CEE faculty members. The 2020 winning communities— Clayton County and the cities of Sandy Springs, Savannah, and Valdosta—will work with Georgia Tech and other community partners to improve their quality of life by promoting walkability, streamlining bus service, managing traffic signals and more.

As communities look to improve service through technology, more and more are interested in an emerging field known as smart city digital twins—a concept that originated here at Georgia Tech. A Smart City Digital Twin is a virtual platform that utilizes data and internet-of-things technology to replicate and emulate changes happening in a real city’s infrastructure systems to provide insight that could help improve sustainability, resilience and livability.

Georgia Tech’s Georgia Smart Communities Challenge named four new grants June 18 in Macon, including two led by School of Civil and Environmental Engineering researchers.