The concept of smart city connectivity goes beyond just automatic lighting and parking search systems—it involves monitoring all buildings in a city for safety and security enhancements.
At Next Industries, our focus is on connecting buildings and structures in a meaningful way to professionals responsible for their maintenance and safety. We specialize in designing and manufacturing highly accurate data acquisition loggers, sensors, and gateways for smart cities. These durable devices operate wirelessly and communicate with the cloud, enabling 24/7 monitoring, notifications, and alarms. Through customized data views, professionals can gain valuable insights into the specific data that is most relevant to them. Our technology allows buildings in a city to communicate with their managers, detecting and addressing potential issues before they manifest through failures. In addition to building monitoring, our sensors also support environmental and structural monitoring—a critical aspect of creating a truly interconnected and smart city.
Building monitoring starts during construction
Structural monitoring during a building’s construction phase can play an important role. How? By ensuring the soundness of the structure and protecting the health and safety of construction workers and the general public. Major construction projects can impact surrounding buildings due to vibration and potential undermining. Adjacent buildings can be monitored via sensors to ensure that no damage is occurring. Taking these actions helps developers to be seen as professional and responsible persons. In addition, these action builds confidence in the integrity of the development, especially in high-density city environments. Then it goes through the building’s lifetime.
Modern materials and construction methods mean that today’s buildings are safe and of the highest quality, but even these structures are subject to environmental impacts that have the potential to affect their integrity. Heavy or continued precipitation, snow, and high winds can contribute to changes in the characteristics of the structure over extended periods. These changes can reduce the building’s ability to withstand extreme events or even lead to serious failure. Even the most powerful materials can experience corrosion or a degrading of properties, which could also reduce the integrity of the building. Such failings often only become apparent when the damage has already been done, resulting in costly repairs. Deploying a range of inclinometers, accelerometers, and temperature sensors allows for continual monitoring of buildings, identifying changes, and allowing for intervention before any significant damage has occurred.
Do not forget about the environment
Occasionally, it is not changes to a structure that can cause failure but changes to the surrounding environment. We can see this in environments where avalanches are a constant threat, but there are other situations where changes in the landscape can impact our structures. Periods of heavy rainfall can lead to saturation of the surrounding ground, resulting in soil liquefaction and landslides. Other extreme events include earthquakes, with potentially catastrophic effects on buildings. Deploying sensors such as inclinometers can monitor the condition of the surrounding environment, while structural sensors will identify any impacts this is having on a city’s buildings. Next Industries offers innovative solutions to connect smart cities, deploying cutting-edge technologies to increase security for both residents and city assets. Visit our solutions and applications pages to find out more about our work.
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Smart Cities