To continue to promote development of the Civil IoT Taiwan program and master IoT (Internet of Things) applications and monitor techniques for smart cities, NARLabs Vice President Bou-Wen Lin led a delegation of colleagues from the program on a visit to industry, academic, and research organizations in Tokyo, Japan. The purpose of this visit focused on Civil IoT Taiwan applications in the areas of air quality, water resources, earthquakes, and disaster prevention and relief, aiming to assess the feasibility of incorporating relevant experience from Japan into practice in Taiwan.
The delegation first visited Japan's National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), which conducts global environmental monitoring of climate change and greenhouse gases. NIES identifies greenhouse gas sources and carbon sinks and works to minimize discrepancies between observed and simulated atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, surveying data roll-ups to validate and optimize the modeling and machine learning systems used in their top-down analytical process. Greenhouse gas emission levels are estimated based on atmospheric observations, which may then supplement national statistical data.
Earthquake early warning systems are entering public life, necessitating public-private collaboration so that communities can be made aware of earthquakes at onset and take immediate shelter. Another stop on the visit, Tokyo's Real-time Earthquake & Disaster Information Consortium (REIC) provides industries and organizations with access to seismic analysis results and warning times to help decrease damage and reduce risk from natural disasters.
(Above) CEO Minoru Yoshida of Hakusan Corporation illustrates lessons learned from past disasters and the need to be proactive rather than passively rely on the government for evacuation.
Next, Hakusan Corporation CEO Minoru Yoshida introduced to the delegation how the company develops new technologies based on societal needs and provides original, cutting-edge products and solutions that are difficult to commercialize in the short term. These technologies include machines that process 8-μm-thick foil into 1-cm-wide material and wind them up to be 10 km long, a system that helps determine extent of damage to skyscraper floors from earthquakes, and seismic sensors for buildings that are cloud-connected.
In terms of water management, Japan's challenges stem from underfunded infrastructure, inefficiency, and the declining birth rate, making it difficult to recruit sufficient staff at water treatment plants. METAWATER proposed strategies to address these challenges by engaging in construction through public-private partnerships, integrating water supply systems, and adopting technological innovations to reduce the need for human labor.
The delegation later met with Honorary Professor Naoshi Hirata of the University of Tokyo Earthquake Research Institute to discuss the history of the institute, current research directions, progress in seismic sensing in Japan, and the state of development of Civil IoT Taiwan.
(Above) The Tokyo Direct 72h TOUR at the Tokyo Rinkai Disaster Prevention Park features a life-size model in an earthquake simulation.
The group also visited Tokyo Rinkai Disaster Prevention Park, which plays two roles as an everyday recreational center for the public and a command headquarters during emergencies. Even the facilities in the park serve dual purposes: benches in the park are not just for visitors to rest on, but can transform into stoves in an emergency. Visitors can test their knowledge on how to protect themselves from a disaster, while a wide array of disaster prevention products are skillfully woven into everyday life.
The delegation lastly had the opportunity to learn more about two of Japan's smart cities. A number of measures have been proposed in creating Fujisawa Sustainable Smart Town, including the installation of photovoltaic systems in homes, facilities, and public areas to reduce carbon emissions, the promotion of sustainable transportation, car sharing, and bicycle use, the installation of an alert system on smart TVs in homes to automatically issue disaster information from the Japan Meteorological Agency, and the setup of delivery services through robots. Meanwhile, Kashiwa-no-ha Smart City is steered by Urban Design Center Kashiwa-no-ha (UDCK), a cooperative organization between the government, public, and academia, and is jointly operated alongside Mitsui Fudosan Realty. Kashiwa-no-ha promotes energy creation, energy storage, and energy conservation, maximizing energy efficiency through a regional power management system and making good use of academic research and the environment to build IoT data.
Through this visit with industry, academic, and research organizations in Tokyo, the delegation has grasped the latest IoT services and monitoring technology and learned ways to further extend it to smart city planning, which is expected to contribute to Taiwan's own development.