IoT Device Management to Cut Electricity Costs for Municipalities Worldwide

This is a guest post, by Daniel Ehrenreich, SCCE, Consultant and Lecturer

Introduction

The cost of electric energy is a growing concern for city authorities and worldwide. The deployment of IoT management platforms for automated monitoring and management platforms for control of the pole-lights, and management of light-related failures enables cost-effective and efficient streetlights’ operation. As a result, these platforms can provide a solution for safer roads and public areas and enhanced security for citizens and city visitors.

The IoT platforms for intelligent street light control are equipped with the following features:

• Cloud-based or on-prem installations
• Real-time analytics
• IoT device management
• Connectivity management
• Cyber-secured operation.

This paper covers the management of endpoint IoT devices, a separate layer process conducted by a 3rd party vendor agnostic to the type of the lighting element, the controller, and the communication network.

The IoT Device Management

The end-point devices communicate via the Internet with the cloud-based street/road/community operator. At the “last mile” section, these devices utilize wireless or power-line communications to enable the intelligent control:

• Dynamically adjust light intensity by increasing or reducing illumination at each location and different times of day, in response to weather or an unexpected incident
• Remote monitoring enhances the personal safety of people by detecting light-outages faster, increasing the lighting in high-crime zones or in response to local conditions
• The intelligent remote-control result in lower power consumption and operating cost. Cities that deployed these solutions indicate significant energy savings

The IoT streetlight systems may use a single or a combination of long-range, medium, and short-range data communication. The IoT device management (deployed as a separate layer by 3rd party service provider) must be agnostic to the type of the lighting element, the IoT controller, and the type of communication network.

IoT Device Management Data:

• Street Light Devices Provisioning
• Inventory Management

Remote 1st-time setup of the field-installed devices important and cost-effective.

Product types, locations, quantities, vendors, products’ HW and SW version, security access, etc.

• Remote monitoring of the device operation and proactive maintenance
• Monitoring of additional /other sensors and control element
• Accurate visibility of the Streetlight related IoT Ecosystem operation
• Consistent and reliable operation of the Lighting control
• Proactive maintenance of remote devices installed on poles
• Instant detection and reporting on physical and cybersecurity events
• Remote ongoing monitoring of the devices for the detection of damaged, disconnected from the power supply, or vandalized devices.
• The trust in IoT Ecosystems is achieved through consistent, reliable, and accurate service.

This requires operation performance monitoring and ongoing process optimization.

Device management process outcome

The IoT device management according to described above is highly important. This process will allow

Although streetlight systems are often offered as complete end-to-end solutions that consist of the HW and management platform, we see a trend in which municipalities of IoT service providers apply the “best-of-breed” approach. Choosing a vendor-agnostic IoT management platform enables municipalities to significantly save CapEx and operational costs by avoiding HW manufacturer dependency, choosing the equipment that is most cost-efficient for their project, and combining various vendor’s devices and solutions to ensure the best fit for their needs.

Friendly One-IoT™ Device Management Platform for Street Light Management

Friendly’s One-IoT™ Management Platform enables remote, unified management of any type of IoT device, including constrained devices via standard protocols, such as LwM2M, OMA-DM, MQTT, TR-069, and other proprietary protocols.

Friendly’s One-IoT™ Management solution provides automated provisioning and remote control of devices. It features a management Admin Console, Technician Portal, QoE Dashboard, BI and Big Data Analytics, and extensive API for customization of vertical applications. Friendly also provides an applications generator module that enables the quick and easy generation and update of any custom applications, without programming.

Friendly’s One-IoT™ Management Platform can be offered via Friendly’s IoT Cloud (SaaS) or installed at the customer’s premises

Summary of Benefits

The core component of street lighting is part of the communications and control technologies. As we are experiencing a rapid acceptance of the IoT Ecosystem concept, smart city solutions will improve many aspects of city infrastructure and lead to higher public satisfaction. Among the key benefits of using a separate-layer the IoT device management are: a) easy to deploy service, b) cost reduction for the streetlight operator, c) higher public satisfaction, d) fewer site visits for repairs and e) faster detection of faults and faster shorter outage. Utilizing the Vendor-Agnostic IoT Device Management Service enables significant cost savings and more efficient project implementation.

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Daniel Ehrenreich, BSc. is a Consultant acting at Secure Communications and Control Experts, and periodically conduct lectures in colleges and conferences on ICS, IoT-IIoT topics; Daniel has over 25 years’ engineering experience with control and communications systems for: Electricity, water, gas and power plants as part of his activities at Tadiran, Motorola, Siemens, and Waterfall Security. Daniel can be contacted by email: Daniel@Scce.co.il or Tel: +972-54-9151594 or LinkedIn