Tech and the City: How TG0’s smart pressure mat is elevating the future of smart cities research
The concept of the “smart city” has been something of a utopian dream for planners over the past decade. But the evolution of smart technology in general and AI in particular has brought more of those capabilities within reach. More than 200,000 people are already hailing driverless robotaxis in San Francisco and Los Angeles every month, for example. The number of smart buildings, which can monitor and automate settings such as lighting, heating and ventilation, is expected to reach 115 million worldwide by 2026.
But experts agree more research is needed to direct the capabilities of smart city technology to the places where it’s most needed. At University College London (UCL), there’s a revolutionary facility that’s making such studies possible. The Person-Environment-Activity Research Laboratory (PEARL) helps researchers analyse the way people move and interact with their surroundings, taking simulation to the next level.
Here, Fiona Jamieson, Strategic Partnerships Director for Civil Engineering at UCL, and Steve Mayo, PEARL’s specialist lead for sound, discuss their latest project, and the important role TG0’s pressure sensing technology has played.
Tell us a bit about the Person-Environment-Activity Research Laboratory (PEARL)?
Fiona Jamieson: “We opened PEARL at UCL in 2021. It’s a space in which we can look at how people interact with the environment around them. That could be where they are physically in the space, and the directions they move in, but also metrics such as what their heart rate is doing, or what their sweat levels are. PEARL allows us to test hypotheses and collect data without doing it in the real world, which might be disruptive, expensive, or even dangerous.”
Steve Mayo: “I don’t think any other university has a facility quite like this. It’s 100 meters long and 40 meters wide at its widest point. It’s been incredibly well soundproofed and has a one second reverb time, which is unheard of for a space of this size.”
What sort of research projects have you conducted at PEARL?
FJ: “We've done work around music and how people might be able to improve an audience’s sound experience. We’ve had autonomous shuttles here, looking at how they might navigate around other road users, such as cyclists and pedestrians. And we’ve worked with Guide Dogs, exploring how we can create more accessible spaces for them. Most of our technical team come from a theatre background so they have great skills in recreating those realistic environments.”
SM: “We’ve looked at what noise electric scooters should make, and are currently working on the next evolution of London buses. We’ve also done some work on smells, and once built a supermarket for a project looking at neurodiversity.”
How did this project with TG0 come about?
FJ: “We had been introduced to an engineering design firm, and were talking to their accessibility group about getting a demonstration project up and running at PEARL. We wanted to show how we could integrate smart technology into design for urban mobility.
“We set up two different environments – one that was pleasant, and one around a long-term temporary construction site. The Engineering firm is involved with the redevelopment of stations, which will go on for many years. The idea was to help them understand the capabilities that PEARL and TG0 could bring as they start to design that site – how to make people feel safe, how to help them navigate the space, etc.”
What did the TG0 smart pressure mats bring to the project?
FJ: “We gave people a task to do and used TG0’s smart mat technology to look at where people were standing, and how they moved around each environment. We haven’t worked with a technology like this before – I don’t think there’s anything else like it on the market – and it’s something we’d like to develop further in the future.
“The mats also provided another way for us to capture data. In other projects, we’ve had to put QR codes on people’s heads to track where they are. You wouldn’t be able to get people to do that in real life. But the mats have real potential for integration into an actual urban environment. They could show people congregating in a particular place all the time, for example. It also gives city designers the chance to collect data without using cameras or other intrusive technology, which is good for privacy.””
What other applications could you see the smart mat being used for?
SM: “We also managed to utilise open sound control with the TG0 team. When someone stood on the mat, it triggered a thunder sound effect. That capability provides a lot of other applications. In the Guide Dogs project, for example, we were looking at how partially sighted people were transitioning from a pedestrian path across a cycle path to a bus stop. There’s potential here to flash a warning light or sound using this technology when someone steps on the mat. Or you could have lighting that turns on as someone approaches a city park, for example.”
What are your predictions for the future of smart cities?
FJ: “We’ve had a lot of conversations with different people about smart cities. It’s definitely of burning interest. The technology is evolving fast but we also need to do more demonstrative testing. The general public is, rightly so, a bit sceptical about why some of these technologies are being integrated with smart cities, and whether it’s safe. PEARL enables us to do that testing and to get feedback before it’s integrated. Sometimes plans look amazing, but you can spend millions of pounds integrating it into a city before realising half of the people don’t use it. We need to test these plans on a full representative cohort of the population.
“The world’s at the beginning of quite a big change in how we’ll design and build our cities for the future. And technologies like TG0’s smart mats and the capabilities of PEARL are really good indicators of that potential.”
Interested in exploring what TG0 technology could add to your research study? Get in touch with our team.
