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Expect more robots, smarter government services in Dubai: Municipality

Dubai - Artificial intelligence technologies shall be used in water management.

By Team KT

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Published: Mon 1 Mar 2021, 6:38 PM

Last updated: Mon 1 Mar 2021, 6:43 PM

Expect more robots and smarter government services in Dubai as the municipality on Monday announced that a slew of ‘futuristic technologies’ will be implemented soon — all to improve customer journeys, raise quality of life, and boost happiness across the city.

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“Given the importance of advanced digital infrastructure and its role in the development of smart cities, we will deploy cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, Robots and Blockchain to achieve a leading position among global cities. We have started on the journey of digitisation and have implemented many projects using IoT and AI technology, after benchmarking our infrastructure with the world’s leading smart cities,” Al Hajri pointed out.

“The application of modern technologies will reap many benefits, such as raising the efficiency of operations, reducing costs, enhancing innovation, forming safer and digitally bonded societies, creating new opportunities for economic development, and an advanced and technically connected infrastructure, increasing workforce participation, and making more effective decisions based on data analysis,” said Dawoud Al Hajri, director-general of Dubai Municipality.


So far, the civic body has shown how IoT can be used in a number of cases. One is the smart grease monitoring system (FOG Trap), which accurately measures the levels of fats, oils and greases in wastewater and sends the data to an IoT system for monitoring. “Its implementation in the city will enable us to achieve a 116 per cent return on investment while also developing the city’s technological infrastructure,” Al Hajri said.

A smart control system was also installed for slope lines with a drainage network, he added. “Sensors were installed on pipes, which monitor the pressure and send data to the control room. Through this analysis, the system identifies any emergency situations for pipelines and pressure control, which supports preventive maintenance and control of drainage networks accurately.”

The use of IoT and AI in water management in the irrigation network seeks to predict the level of water demand, he added. “It can also classify customer uses, identify delivery priority, and control pumps and valves, which will help in planning equipment maintenance, avoiding water scarcity, and increasing network reliability and proactively reducing negatives in pumping stations and water tanks.”

A state-of-the-art integrated technological ecosystem is also being used to support the maintenance of food supplies. Featuring the latest innovations, the system uses smart sensors to monitor temperature, humidity, light and air quality in food storage facilities to ensure the quality and safety of food products, Al Hajri said.

For agriculture, drones are being used in farms to gather real-time data on plant health, with sensors installed to monitor moisture levels and soil quality.

“The Dubai Municipality is currently working on upgrading the digital infrastructure to enhance the application of IoT solutions in Dubai, to create a flexible, multi-use standard digital structure capable of communicating with all types of sensors, allowing the exchange of data with other devices in real time, and capable of processing big data to predict patterns and identify trends and take automatic actions,” the DM chief explained.


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