What do you think of when you hear "Smart City"?You may only come to mind, such as the story of the future, the convenient life that makes use of AI, a convenient life that makes use of IoT.Some readers may think, "Some companies are just promoting them and they have nothing to do with them."
Although smart city's ideas vary, in the future social image of the Japanese government, "Society 5.0," it is stated that "the government is promoting the smart city initiative."It is a society that is not only a specific company but also the government.
This time, we reviewed the basics of the smart city and asked a company that focuses on this field about the smart city's “current location”.Then, we could see the vision of creating our happy life in the future.
The Cabinet Office defines the smart city, "Utilizing new technologies such as ICT, solving (...) sustainable cities and regions that continue to solve urban and regional issues, and continue to create new value.It is explained.
Although the definition is abstract, shopping utilizing autonomous driving buses and face authentication, delivery using robots and drones, digitization of administrative procedures, crime prevention with AI, and data from various devices and locations-If you give specific examples, you will notice that it is familiar.
The Cabinet Office has positioned these smart city as a Society 5.0 showcase.Society5.0 is a society in which IoT connects various things to the Internet and uses shared information in AI.The hunting society (SOCIETY 1.0), which was pursuing mammoths, the agricultural society (2.0), which raised crops, the industrial society (3.0), which opened in the industrial revolution, and the information society (4.0) of IT technology and the Internet (4.0).It is a society in.
Until now, we have developed a society to be convenient to live.In the future, it is necessary to solve social issues such as declining birthrate and aging and natural disasters, and to create new services and values using collected data.
Sweden's Axis Communications (AXIS), which developed and sold a network camera (IP camera) in 1996, has begun to realize such a smart city, which is also attracting attention.
AXIS, which developed new technologies one after another in the field of network cameras and built a position as the industry's top class manufacturer, started full -fledged smart city business in 2018 that made use of its own technology and knowledge.In 2001, the company decided to strengthen its development in Japan.
Axisのシニアキーアカウントマネージャー スマートシティ担当の大部信さん（事業開発本部）Behind this is the company's vision "Innovating for A Smarter, Safer World" (realization of a smart and secure world by innovation)."It is important to do what you do to make people happy in Society 5.0, and it overlaps with the vision of AXIS," said Nobu Otoshi (Business Development Headquarters), a senior key account manager of Axis Communications.do.
So why promote smart city in Japan?Mr. Ota explains that there is the current state of the "task destination", which is declining and aging and aging."I think Japan needs to take the initiative in various challenges among developed countries. If the social mechanism that has been determined and moved by people is no longer possible due to population decline, we have no choice but to use technology."(Mr. Ozu)
The company can create a "happy society where people are happy" by breaking down the issues that the regions have and solving them in public -private collaboration.For example, in cooperation with local governments in an area where depopulation is progressing, it is a part of the smart city where the elderly are running and returned to shopping and return.
A smart city that can be realized by replacing the role of a person with technology, but in order to realize such a vision, it requires IoT devices and AI technology as a physical component."Even if you use robots and autonomous driving cars, you will end up with the same functions as humans -you will need eyes, ears, mouths, and brains," says Otabe.
AXIS says that all of these know -how and technology are prepared for the company."Network cameras are equivalent to the eyes. The microphone attached to the camera is ears, and if you use the speaker, you can supplement the function of the mouth. Recording images with the recorder, and in collaboration with the AXIS partner company Ai venture.It is also possible to judge the situation and give instructions instead of the brain. "
Until now, AXIS has box -type / dome -type network cameras, compound eye cameras that contain some lens blocks in one housing, fisheye camera, thermal camera that detect temperature, network speakers that can be supplied with LAN cable, recorders, and recorders.We have worked on various products such as image analysis software.We believe that if these products are provided to the market as a total solution that integrates them, we can contribute to the smart city, which we expect to be a global trend in the future.
Axisの製品群の一例（画像クリックで拡大）Nevertheless, smart city is a very large concept, so there is endless things to do.Among them, the most focus is on the area of "urban transportation, environmental monitoring," and "public safety."The aim is to pour their strengths into these three.
Up to this point, there were many vision stories, but smart city is definitely realized one step at a time.In the three areas where AXIS focuses, there are the following cases.
In the area of urban transportation, autonomous driving buses are full -scale operation at Haneda Airport and Ibaraki Prefectural Sakaimachi.It is a mechanism that tours the specified route using a GPS device.If AI analyzes the video of the AXIS network camera mounted in the car and detects actions such as standing up during operation, warns from the speaker to keep the safety.Since remote control is possible, there is no need to place employees in each bus operating area as in the past, and it is effective in depopulated areas.
An environmental monitoring case in a large city is the "Smart Paul", which has a built -in camera in streetlights.In the Roppongi shopping street in Tokyo, a smart pole with a built -in AXIS camera is installed.By analyzing human style, age, gender, etc. from camera images, the aim is to use it for marketing, such as displaying products tailored to the time zone and customer base, and holding events.
Regarding the smart pole, Mr. Obu said, "Since the information that the clerk has entered at the cashier of the store so far can be automatically determined by AI and accurate data can be obtained, the accuracy of purchasing by the store manager has been doing it with intuition.He explained, "" Shinjuku -ku, Tokyo, Okazaki City, Aichi Prefecture, and other than Japan, and Singapore has been introduced, and it is becoming a worldwide language as a tool that realizes smart city. "
The same environmental monitoring can contribute to protecting people from frequent natural disasters in recent years.In Japan, where flood damage is likely to occur, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism has set up surveillance cameras in rivers to check the dangers of flooding in real time, which is useful for evacuation.By distributing the video live, the citizens can also check it out, "If you can see the video from your home, you can solve the dangerous behavior of going to the river and rice fields in the case of heavy rain."AXIS also offers simple river monitoring solutions with independent monitoring systems.
In the area of public safety, the system that uses a camera to detect the missing person, detects people who have gone out from nursing facilities and notify the staff, and detects suspicious individuals with AI cameras and speakers from speakers.Products can be used for warning mechanisms."There is also a way to judge that there is some danger if there are people who run away," (Mr. Obu).
スマートシティの領域「公共の安全」でAxisが提供するソリューションの案（画像クリックで拡大）AXIS, which is active in aggressive initiatives, says that it cannot be realized by just one company."There is a limit to solutions that can be provided by AXIS alone. We are developing in cooperation with AXIS partners to solve the issues of people who are trying to realize smart city, such as local governments and companies."
Currently, the company has a partnership with companies that are indispensable for automatically judging things and companies that work on deep learning, and companies that develop a cloud infrastructure that summarizes a large number of components that form smart cities.
"I would like to continue to deepen cooperation with local governments and companies involving smart city realization in the future. It may still be a hand -exploding state, but I hope that we can proceed with ideas together." Product.Please buy it in order to be a happy world in order to be happy as one of the same Japanese people instead of "
When will Smart City be realized? This question will be a concern for everyone.Finally, when I asked Mr. Otabe, he replied, "Smart City has no goal of" how many years it will be achieved, "because AXIS has started one by one in Japan as a whole."
As companies and local governments go beyond the barriers, we will steadily approach a happy society by promoting efforts that make use of experience and knowledge.AXIS wants to provide products and technology know -how by concluding partnerships with companies and local governments that are promoting such efforts.How about accelerating the realization of a smart city in collaboration with AXIS, which has tip technology?
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