P-SIMMOSC: Platform for the SIMulation of MObility in Smart City

Heads: Emmanuel DUBOIS and  Gentian JAKLLARI

The P-SIMMoSC platform is part of the dynamics of the neOCampus operation, initiated and partially financially supported by the University Toulouse III Paul Sabatier since 2013. The neOCampus operation involves 11 of the University’s laboratories, whose aim is to pool their skills to improve day-to-day comfort for the university community while reducing the ecological footprint of the buildings, cutting operating costs and developing new services for campus users. In the field of IT research, neOCampus has led to the progressive development of a platform enabling the capture, transfer, storage and use of ambient data. Anchored around a data cloud and powered by various sensors installed in classrooms and administration, this platform relies on a LoRA network, present on the campus, and offers support to students, the University’s flow economist and researchers to develop new projects in connection with the Smart Campus.

Objective

While relying on the neOCampus platform, P-SIMMoSC aims to add an original component by focusing on data management related to mobility in a Smart City context. P-SIMMoSC will constitute a platform for interactive simulation of traffic in a Smart City (pedestrians, vehicles) while remaining anchored in the physical world (real sensors, building models, driver’s cab, instantaneous data).

This original orientation is part of a local dynamic linked to the field of mobility. Mobility is in fact one of the three strategic subjects of the DAS Smart City (part of the IRIT structure) and a priority for the region, as evidenced by the recent creation of the major cluster on land and sea mobility. Moreover, mobility and transport are the strategic application sectors targeted by the PIA ANITI. Finally, the simulation-based approach is necessary to allow an interconnection of the different aspects to be taken into account, which are not all in the same state of maturity.

P-SIMMoSC is therefore an extension of the existing neOCampus platform, focused on mobility in a Smart City, proposing a simulation-based approach exploiting artificial intelligence (GAMA) and anchored in the data, sensors and resources of the physical world.

It will make available to users, and will contribute to articulate and converge, scientific and technological contributions (digital technologies, appropriate material and digital infrastructures, etc.) intended for the development of new uses for humans and their communities in a context of mobility in a Smart City and in particular for a better appropriation of their environment (inclusive city, energy consumption, crisis management, urban mobility).

Users

This interactive simulation platform will be intended for the actors of a Smart City, or one of its districts or buildings, and will enable them to project themselves into these connected and communicating environments to manage, operate or study innovative functionalities and services.

The users concerned are the inhabitants, the managers (property manager, town hall, etc.) or the designers (town planners, architect, etc.) of the “smart-buildings” making up the Smart City.

Positioning of the platform in relation to existing platforms (local and national)

Resources already in place: P-SIMMoSC will be able to draw on resources already present and taken in hand within the IRIT and in particular:

  • A driving simulator (Oktal)

  • Simulation support (GAMA platform)

  • Numerous sensors installed in classrooms and others available for one-off experiments

  • Infrastructures deployed on the Rangueil – UT3 campus and at ENSEEIHT, which has a LoRA network.

  • Advanced interaction solutions: large touch screens, mobile devices, immersive solutions, architectural building models (BIM)

  • A scenario built to articulate the different aspects to be integrated into the simulation platform

In addition, various research actions are being finalised with a view to obtaining funding to feed this platform (in 2021: 3 projects are currently being submitted, PhD are in the process of being started, in particular a DAS-SC PhD on the intelligent processing of masses of data from Smart Cities).

Related applications: Concrete uses in applied fields have already been identified and are the subject of existing collaborations. These include the field of crisis management, dealt with in particular within the framework of a collaboration with CEA-Tech Occitanie, and the field of health with the dynamics of the Castres site.

Technical, organizational description, utilization rate

Technical description: P-SIMMoSC will be based on the ambient data cloud already in place at IRIT.

Just as APIs already exist to access this data, the platform will progressively offer services allowing easy connections to the LoRA network, the driving simulator, the interaction and rendering solutions and the simulation engine. Its architecture will make it possible to aggregate the technological contributions and P-SIMMoSC will thus provide a unique framework for illustrating the scientific contributions.

These technological and scientific advances will be those developed by the different IRIT research groups involved in the platform, in particular those involved in the DAS-SC and the trainees and PhD students funded under the DAS-SC and by the neOCampus operation.

Organisational description:

  • A meeting every two months to identify the progress to be aggregated by studying the results of M2 internships and theses with the platform.

  • An annual meeting to choose among the couplings carried out, the most successful and / or relevant for deepening and integration

Rate of use: To date, the neOCampus platform and in particularly the data cloud, is giving rise to multiple access by students, UPS administrators and researchers:

  1. Initial training: L3, M1 internships: 3,500 hours since 2017
  2. Independent research, M2 internships, theses: 24,000h since 2017
  3. Contract research: 2,200 hours since 2017

The same audiences may be brought to use the simulator, and collaborations with external partners (notably the Smart Building Alliance) may benefit from this simulation platform.