Seoul Makes Magok a Smart City Testbed

As the city of Seoul is trying to make Magok District a smart city testbed where residents, experts, and companies solve urban issues by experimenting and implementing the technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the city has selected five “Magok Smart City Living Lab” projects to finalize the trial. Companies will develop the new technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution while residents and experts, who will be the users, will participate in the project to experiment and implement the technologies. For each project, support of KRW 100 million will be offered.

The five projects are ▴“Convenient City for the Visually Impaired” to develop an app for helping the visually impaired walk and purchase goods conveniently, ▴“Residential Participatory Magok Smart City Smell Community Mapping” to make a map of smell data in the district, ▴ “Fire Recognition System of Magok Residential Area Using Digital Twin Technology Based on Living Lab” to develop an app to detect fires in apartments, ▴“Outdoor Delivery in Magok Industrial Complex Using Robot Platform Based on Automatic Driving” to implement a delivery service run by automatic driving robots, and ▴“Study on Smart City-type IoT Personal Transportation Based on Station” to install stations exclusively for electric scooters.

First, the Smart Order Application will be developed, with which the visually impaired can easily visit stores and purchase goods. The app will be equipped with a navigation function for the visually impaired so that it can guide him/her with information on the location, entrance, etc. of stores and inform him/her of the menus at restaurants. He or she can also make payment by having his or her biometric trait read on the app.

Second, residents will measure and collect the smells on every corner of Magok District by carrying a smell measuring instrument to make an online map with the data. The collected information will be used to search for a solution to tackle any offensive odors in the region with the help of AI analysis.

Third, an app will be developed to detect fires in apartments through real-time observation of temperature changes. The digital twin-based, three-dimensional city model will be constructed on which the information, such as temperature and more, will be added through the sensors installed throughout apartments, which enables the real-time situation to be checked through the app.

Fourth, the technology through which robots can deliver food to customers will be verified, in order to develop the service in which the automatic driving robots can be utilized in various ways. The stations to charge electric scooters will be established. Additionally, the city will support the short distance travel of residents by setting forth safety driving rules after collecting data, including the driving environments, travel routes, and more, by installing IoT sensors on the scooters.

The companies to implement the five Smart City Living Lab projects will run the projects together with residents and experts for about six months using Magok District as a testbed. The outcome will be shared in December 2019 at a briefing session.