Buffalo's Future as a Smart City

Faculty, students, industry representatives, and government partners gathered for lectures and demonstrations related to 5G and the Wireless Internet of Things.

First Buffalo Day: 5G and Wireless Internet of Things

The First Buffalo Day: 5G and Wireless Internet of Things provided a forum for UB students and faculty, industry representatives and government partners to come togethter to discuss Buffalo’s future as a smart city. Held on November 22, 2019 in the UB Student Union, the event included representatives from Verizon, Samsung, General Electric and other companies, as well as demonstrations of several student projects.

Electrical engineering students demonstrate their project, called SMART farmING - Infer, Nurture, Grow, which provides a low-cost intelligent system for monitoring agricultural fields using sensors, long-range wireless IoT communications and cloud data processing technologies. The project team includes Daniel Sampaio Brazil, Abhishek Samvedi, Vaishali Srinivasan, Soundarya Rajesh and Komala Sruthi Pilladi.

Filippo Malandra from UB's Department of Electrical Engineering talked about the state of the art, the challenges and possible solutions for wireless networks modeling of the Internet of Things.

Ali Hantal (left), CEO of VR-masters, said that the spatial web (Web 3.0) revolution is approaching, but there are still many unsolved issues.

Luca Giovanni Gianoli (center) talked about HumanITas, which is developing an ecosystem for building an aero-smart city of the future.

A team of electrical engineering students earned the best demo award for their project, "Lock Monitoring Technology,” which enables people to check the status of their doors from wherever they are, and be notified of potential break-ins. From left are Xiaowen Tian, Jiangqi Hu, Sabarish Krishna Moorthy (teaching assistant), Zhangyu Guan (instructor), Margaret Donnelly, Shibo Yang and Benjamin Leising.

Oluwole (O.J.) McFoy, the general manager of the Buffalo Sewer Authority, talked about how to build a smart city in Buffalo based on 5G and IoT technologies.

The UB WINGS Lab participated in the Buffalo Wireless Day. From left are Jiangqi Hu, Maxwell Mcmanus, Ankush Hari, Sai Biren Shyam Raichoti, Ajeya Anand, Ranjith Samuel Suresh Kumar, Zhangyu Guan and Sabarish Krishna Moorthy.

HumanITas demonstrated the ecosystem they have developed for building an aero-smart city of the future.

Eric Petrie, the CEO of Skylink Drones, talks about the environmental surveillance services provided by their company with Zhangyu Guan, one of the organizers of the Buffalo Wireless Day event.

Mark Coon (center) from Verizon interacts with Jithin Jagannath and Anu Saji from ANDRO Computational Solutions during the Buffalo Wireless Day

Ubicquia demonstrated their latest IoT-based intelligent lighting system during the Buffalo Wireless Day.

Slideshow

previous next

of change view fullscreen

Photos by The Onion Studio and the event organizers.

Published March 26, 2020

The article below, published in days leading up to First Buffalo Day, provides additional information about the event.

Wireless leaders to discuss next-gen tech

By CORY NEALON

Published November 21, 2019

What's the future of wireless tech in Buffalo?

That topic and more will be discussed Nov. 22 during a gathering of tech leaders at UB’s North Campus. The event, being held from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Student Union, will include officials from Verizon, Samsung, General Electric and other companies, as well as students, professors, startups and municipal leaders.

Presentations and lectures are scheduled during the morning and afternoon centering on Buffalo’s future as a smart city, how fifth generation (5G) wireless technology is leading to new industries, wireless security advancements and the “internet of things,” which is shorthand for the connection of everyday devices to the internet.

A full schedule is available online.

As part of the event, UB students will demonstrate the technology they’re developing, including drone platforms, parking spot finders, crop monitoring tools, security systems and more. These demonstrations will take place from 12:30-2 p.m. in the second floor flag room of the Student Union.

Filippo Malandra, assistant professor of research in the Department of Electrical Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, is one of the event’s organizers.

While the event is an opportunity to showcase the excellent work of UB engineering students, he says it’s also an opportunity for broader discussions about the positive role that technology can play in building smarter, more resilient communities.

“Developing smart cities that leverage technology to make communities safer, healthier and more equitable is a complex objective. This can only happen if three key actors — industry, municipalities and academia — work together,” Malandra says. “Meeting like this will help ensure Buffalo and other cities are working toward this realization.”

Additional organizers of the event from the Department of Electrical Engineering are Zhangyu Guan, Nicholas Mastronarde, Zhi Sun and Shaofeng Zou. Former UB faculty member Josep M. Jornet, now of Northeastern University, is also an organizer.

Published December 5, 2019

Filippo Malandra, assistant professor of research
Department of Electrical Engineering