Anyone arriving at the 2024 IoT Impact conference and exhibition, to be held at the University of Technology Sydney, (UTS) on June 13, will be confronted by an unusual sight: a 150-metre-high multistorey building covered in greenery. That’s Central Park, across the road from the UTS main building.

‘Greenwalls’ like the one on Central Park are not only pleasing to the eye: they bring environmental benefits, and a joint research project between UTS and NTT, the NTT DOCOMO Greenwall, is investigating how IoT can aid in their creation and maintenance.

Delegates to IoT Impact 2024 will get a rare opportunity to learn more about this research during one of several tours of UTS research projects and labs.

The NTT DOCOMO Greenwall project has built a seven-metre square vertical garden on the outside of UTS Building 1. It is being used to research and refine the use of sensor technologies and smart algorithms to streamline urban green infrastructure management, reduce maintenance costs and gain a deeper understanding of green infrastructure health and operations.

Sensors in the UTS greenwall gather data on moisture, temperature, nutrients and plant health. This data is then fed into an AI system to optimise maintenance. The aim is to automate watering and fertilisation to achieve healthy and visually appealing greenwalls at minimal cost.

Greenwalls can lower in-building temperatures by blocking sunlight and by evaporative cooling. In cold climates they also provide insulation. They can capture airborne particles and their associated microbial communities can degrade airborne pollutants such as those emitted by motor vehicles.

Professor Mehran Abolhasan from the UTS RF and Communications Technologies (RFCT) Lab leads the project exploring the potential of sensor technologies and smart algorithms to streamline urban green infrastructure management.

By leveraging data-driven insights, the project seeks to reduce maintenance costs and gain a deeper understanding of green infrastructure health and operations. This will allow researchers to refine the network technology, sensor technology and the type of data collected for future exploration.

Next-gen RF lab tour: enabling IoT applications

IoT Impact attendees also have an opportunity to visit the UTS Radio Frequency and Communication Technologies (RFCT) Laboratory.

The Faculty of Engineering and IT (FEIT) at UTS hosts the RFCT facility. This state-of-the-art hub unites a team of world-class researchers and engineers with international and local expertise. RFCT is a collaborative hub for multidisciplinary and industry-driven research and development. RFCT is dedicated to fostering the development of next-generation RF-based devices and supporting technologies.

These innovations have the potential to revolutionise a vast array of sectors, including agriculture, telecommunications, healthcare, manufacturing, space exploration, transportation, cybersecurity, and the development of smart cities.

During the tour the lab’s co-director, associate professor Negin Shariati and senior research fellow, Dr Rasool Keshavarz, will provide an overview of the lab’s R&D work.

RF communications are crucial to many IoT applications, and are becoming increasing challenging with ever more demanding requirements and congested RF spectrum.

To address these challenges the lab is working on everything from low-level electronics and RF circuits to high-level wireless communication and the integration of AI and ML into RF and communication technologies.

The Greenwall/RFCT Laboratory tour will run from 11:00am – 12:00pm on 13 June and is limited to 20 people. If there is sufficient interest a second tour will be offered from 1:00pm – 2:00pm.

Robotics lab tour: reducing risk in hazardous environments

Delegates can also get a chance to see state of the art robotics research into the inspection and maintenance of civil structures with a visit to the UTS Infrastructure Robotics Laboratory, from 3:00pm – 4:00pm.

The lab is a joint project with Transport for NSW, Sydney Water, Meat & Livestock Australia, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), Junglefy and the City of Sydney Council.

It is working on ways to reduce the risk to workers by allowing them to remotely collect data and perform maintenance in hazardous environments such as the dusty and claustrophobic interiors of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the corrosive waters of Sydney’s water distribution systems and Japan’s power transmission towers.

Replicas of these structures have been constructed in the lab to test and develop control algorithms, sensors and data processing techniques. This work is taking place in parallel with field deployment of robots by the lab’s partners.

Data Arena tour, IoT use cases, industry speakers

In addition to the Greenwall/RFCT Laboratory and Infrastructure Robotics Laboratory tours there will be a tour of the UTS ‘Data Arena’ on offer at this, the fifth, annual IoT Impact conference and exhibition, organised by Australia’s peak IoT industry body, IoT Alliance Australia, and media partner IoT Hub.

The event aims to attract more than 40 exhibitors and hundreds of delegates: policy makers, designers, solution providers, researchers, educators, technology buyers and IoT users along with product and service developers and resellers.

Delegates will explore how Australia organisations are using IoT technologies for everything from asset management to remote monitoring, industrial automation, logistics, safety, environmental monitoring and energy management.

A key focus will be using IoT and AI to achieve sustainability goals and improve efficiency, while addressing cybersecurity concerns.

Tour reservations are limited, so purchase tickets and see the IoT Impact Conference agenda here.

The IoT Impact conference will be held in Sydney on 13 June, 2024, at the Great Hall, UTS.