Mostafa Zaman, a Ph.D. candidate, discusses the 1:12 scale OpenCyberCity at VCU’s College of Engineering. (Photo by Mark Newton)
The city of the future is here, and it’s located inside a classroom at Virginia Commonwealth University.
OpenCyberCity, a realistic 1:12 scale model of a bustling downtown, allows College of Engineering students to test tiny drones, autonomous vehicles, manufacturing robots, smart devices and more under the tutelage of the city’s director, electrical and computer engineering professor Sherif Abdelwahed. The model city was built in 2022, and about 40 students have used it since then.
“The idea is to have this for education as well as research,” Abdelwahed says. “We’re getting [students] as close [to] a hands-on experience as possible, as youʼre going to use the same technology, the same equipment, the same stuff that we use, but at the small scale.”
Camera readings provide data akin to GPS, and sensors report temperature, humidity and other environmental factors needed to perfect the programming, all of which are displayed on a large monitor. Raspberry Pi computers can then receive and execute commands, such as lowering a roomʼs temperature to make it more comfortable and to reduce energy costs. In addition to a residential structure, students are building a hospital, an office building and a manufacturing warehouse with two robotic arms and a conveyor belt.
The technology of OpenCyberCity is already being used in cities across America and Europe. The city of Richmond, Abdelwahed says, is currently focusing on implementing air pollution, air quality and traffic systems.
Among other things, students are developing emergency response systems. “The idea here,” Abdelwahed says, “is to help to utilize drones, if there is a car accident or some kind of emergency, to deliver needed equipment there, even before the emergency service will be able [to arrive],” giving the Los Angeles fires as an example where the technology can be used. “This is something exciting that will have a large impact on reducing the fatalities and the losses that come out of these kinds of emergencies.”
