Sensors in heat: A pilot study for high resolution urban sensing in an integrated streetlight platform

Wide-scale and high resolution urban sensing to monitor the climate and traffic conditions along the road would benefit urban decision-making and environmental research. This resolution can be accomplished via an intelligent streetlight platform. Solid-state street lights offers several advanced features over existing lighting infrastructure, but require a sophisticated controller to take full advantage of these features. Environmental sensors can be embedded inside the lighting fixture and interface with its controller to create an urban sensor network with a high spatial resolution. Data collected by this sensor network can be used to better inform urban planning with detailed climate, pollution, and traffic information. This paper presents a pilot urban sensing study to investigate the requirements and considerations needed by an urban sensor network mounted in street lights in a tropical region. A wireless sensor network pilot study, which monitored external aspects of a building, was deployed to investigate the network design and explore what sensors and features could be used in the main intelligent lighting control platform project. The tropic zone experiences high temperatures and humidity, so consideration and management of sensors that are exposed to extreme heat for long periods was a focus. The pilot study found the sensor unit's case temperature averaged at 50°C during winter and 65° Celsius in early summer with expected temperatures to exceed the maximum prescribed for functionality.