This document proposes a citizen-owned smart city platform called SmarterBham. A diverse team will create an open-source IoT platform and governance model to collect real-time city sensor data. Starting with a small pilot of sensors measuring light, noise, air quality and temperature, the goal is to empower citizens to shape their city and improve quality of life. The roadmap outlines workshops in 2018 to build prototypes, with a public launch planned for late 2018 after completing the governance model.

2. 2
Never doubt that a small group of
thoughtful, committed citizens can
change the world; indeed, it is the
only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead

3. 3
A SMART CITY PLATFORM BY
THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE
Imagine a city driven by information. A place where decision making is supported by a city-wide sensor network
that provides real time data about the state of things. Imagine the platform that runs the network, built and owned
by the citizens, measuring the things that we think are important and giving us the insights we need to make our
city the best it can be.

4. 4
We are a diverse and experienced team
of engineers, entrepreneurs, artists,
user experience experts, technology
leaders, financial wizards and
interested community members united
around the goal of using technology
and data to improve the lives of those in
our city.
We are creating a community owned
and operated open IoT platform for
smart cities projects. We will pair this
with a participatory governance model
and open source / data policy to spread
the benefit of our work as broadly as
possible.
Smart cities applications have the
potential to improve health, services
and quality of life in the city, while at the
same time improving efficiency. By
doing it in an open fashion we can
encourage the community to participate
in shaping the future of their city.
OUR SIGNATURE PROJECT:
SMARTERBHAM
WHO ARE WE? WHAT ARE WE
DOING? WHY ARE WE DOING
IT?

5. 5
Zurich
Barcelona
Sentilo
Platform:
Open Source
IoT
OPEN IOT
AROUND THE
WORLD
This isn’t a new idea, and we aren’t
conquering new territory. Other cities around
the world have successfully deployed varying
types of open IoT networks, platforms and
data policies, building and releasing open
source tools along the way. Barcelona
developed Sentilo as an open IoT platform,
and The Things Network has community run
IoT LoRa infrastructure operating in dozens
of cities. London makes a trove of data from
their Transport for London IoT deployment
available to all.
Amsterdam
The Things
Network
Communities
London
Transport for
London Open
IoT Data

6. 6
HOW WILL WE
GET STARTED?
Starting small, we are going to build
and pilot a small network
of homogeneous "city sensors” that
measure several aspects of their
environment. This pilot program will
allow our group to create the
community, processes, expertise and
tools required for a broader rollout in
support of heterogeneous sensor
types. Following the mantra of
“default to open”, all of our code and
data will be available to anybody that
wants it.

7. 7
Our
Product
INTRODUCING THE CITY SENSOR
Light sensing to measure light
pollution, street lighting levels
Microphone for measuring noise
pollution. With precise
measurements, noise sources
can be pinpointed
Particulate pollution sensor for
measuring airborne particles, a
major source of health concerns
Temperature and humidity
sensor for measurement
correction and mapping heat
islands

8. 8
SPRING 2018
Our first city sensor prototypes
will be built and tested. We are
aiming for a complete and
extensible sensor package that
costs < $50.
Our device registration and
management portal and the
associated processes will enter a
closed beta.
CITY SENSOR BETA CORE PLATFORM CLOSED BETA
Our first workshop! Workshop
participants will build prototypes
of the city sensor that they can
deploy in their own
neighborhoods.
SENSOR WORKSHOP V1
SPRING 2018 SUMMER 2018
OUR ROADMAP

9. 9
The second iteration of our
workshop, building on the lessons
learned from the first.
SENSOR WORKSHOP V2
Completion and public release of our
governance model. How will
potential new IoT projects get
connected? How do we steer the
ship?
GOVERNANCE MODEL
Official public launch of the
SmarterBham platform.
PUBLIC LAUNCH
SUMMER 2018 FALL 2018
OUR ROADMAP
FALL 2018

10. 10
2018
In 2018 we aim to extend our last mile
connectivity with cellular, public WiFi or
LoRaWAN technologies.
Throughout 2018 and into 2019 we will explore
and develop additional use cases around
transit, environment, city services, and other
areas. By 2020 we will have a reproducible
program template that other cities can use
to launch their own citizen-centric smart
cities initiatives.
2019
2020
BEYOND THE ROADMAP
LAST MILE IMPROVEMENTS
EXPANDED USE CASES
REPEATABLE
PROGRAM

11. 11
SmarterBham
Our first generation city
sensor will be built on the
Raspberry Pi.
Community run LoRaWAN
network for last mile
connections.
Cellular data provisioning and
management for citizen projects
with financial support.
We plan to use AWS IoT and
other AWS technologies to build
out our core platform.
TECHNOLOGY PARTNERS
PILOT PHASE FULL LAUNCH

12. 12
SmarterBham
Our pilot city sensor includes air
quality monitoring, of interest to
GASP. A relationship already exists.
Red Mountain Makers has expertise
and experience in the hardware, as
well as in education and outreach.
TechBirmingham brings
together Birmingham’s most
successful tech companies.
Our project aligns with Futureproof
Bama’s goals of readying Alabama
for an era of automation.
POTENTIAL COMMUNITY PARTNERS

13. JOIN US
codeforbirmingham.org
13

14. DESIGN APPENDIX

15. 15OUR WORKSPRODUCTS
AWS IOT HIGH LEVEL
ARCHITECTURE
AWS has a robust IoT platform that offers several
advantages for a community run project. The start up
costs are low, and the consumption model ensures that
the project only needs to pay for the actual capacity
consumed. Our high level design is based on using AWS
IoT Thing Topics and Rules to route the collected data to
several targets which may include Elasticsearch,
DynamoDB and Kinesis. Those systems will then be used
to handle event triggers, provide open data access, and to
perform analysis.

16. 16OUR WORKSPRODUCTS
PORTAL HIGH LEVEL
ARCHITECTURE
AWS is a common deployment platform for web
applications of all types. The high level design for the
device management, registration and data portal is a
simple web application architecture consisting of app
server and db instances across two availability zones.
Zone free resources such as Elasticsearch, DynamoDB
and S3 are used as well. The Elasticsearch and
DynamoDB instances used by the portal are populated
with data from the IoT subsystem rules and associated
actions. This data will also be periodically snapshotted
and placed into a publicly accessible S3 bucket.

17. 17CITY SENSOR DESIGN
Embedded
Platform
Key
Advantages
Sensor Suite Key Advantages Other Considerations
Key Risks Key Risks
Cost Targets Software / Hardware Policy
Our primary
embedded platform is
the Raspberry Pi Zero
W. This capable IoT
device is powerful and
extensible enough to
meet or exceed all
project requirements
Open hardware,
commodity OS, broad
language support,
baked in connectivity
PWM / Analog
requires support
hardware
Limited availability
Sharp Particle Sensor
DHT22 Temp / Humidity
Electret or MEMS
Microphone
Photodiode or digital lux
sensor
Commodity hardware
keeps costs low,
reliability high
Some commodity
sensors have
precision or accuracy
limitations
Ultimately we will
need PCB and
enclosure design
work to produce a
device simple enough
for a workshop and
durable enough for a
deployment.
Our intent is to release all of the code and designs used to run
the City Sensor under a permissive open source license so
others can learn from and build on our work.
We are targeting < $100 for the prototype device kit.
Production versions are targeted at < $75