Enhancing Urban Sustainability Through Disruptive Technologies: An Integrated Digital Twin-IoT Approach for Real-Time Temperature and Foliage Monitoring

Enhancing Urban Sustainability Through Disruptive Technologies: An Integrated Digital Twin-IoT Approach for Real-Time Temperature and Foliage Monitoring

Urban climate remains one of the most sought-after areas for mapping and monitoring in the wake of a high density of occupants, daily businesses, and the need for mitigating facilities. To create a proof of concept spatially aware system, a campus-wide network of Internet of Things (IoT) sensors was deployed. The IoT devices used are low-cost sensor designs that used nodeMCU, DHT22, and sim modules where internet connectivity was poor. A total of 11 × sensor units (6 indoor and 5 outdoor) were deployed on campus to monitor the campus temperature and humidity wholistically. For data collection, a database has been centrally hosted, and data is leveraged from it on an online portal named dashboard.aiaware.com.pk. The dashboard not only provides real-time readings but also catalogs the historically highest and lowest values recorded. In addition to that, the data dashboard also leverages georeferenced data on the entire set of plant species, 40% of the campus’s covered area of 730 acres, coupled with a drone survey-based 3D map of the campus. When used with an XGBoost model, it provides a spatial extent of the effect a certain plant type and species may have on ambient temperatures.