New technologies for smart, secure and safe cities

Smart and safe cities are a way of life where technologies will increasingly support the sustainable and digital development of the urban environment for the benefit of the territory and its citizens. This will be undertaken through mobility, transport and energy, from environmental protection to communications and via physical and cyber security, infrastructures, and major events management.

Thanks to digital transformation, cities have become increasingly intelligent, through the spread of technological devices, sensors, and infrastructures. In this context, data integration through different technologies plays a role in providing operators with complete situational awareness, delivering the right information at the right time.

X-2030, the platform for the advanced City Management System

Leonardo, one of the world’s leading players in aerospace, defence, and security, has developed the X-2030 platform, which supports the decision process for the safety of cities, the territory, and critical infrastructure.

Based on the C5I paradigm (Command, Control, Communication, Computer, Cyber, and Intelligence), X-2030, cyber secure and cyber resilient by design, can integrate a large number of data from heterogeneous sources allowing resilience management.

The platform uses typical digitisation technologies – AI and the Cloud – to provide a real-time snapshot of the situation and support decision-makers by collecting and processing high amounts of information from open sources, such as the internet or social media, data from planes, drones and ground sensors, integrating and enhancing technologies, networks and databases which are already available. The system also integrates information from earth observation satellites, to monitor and map the territory and its evolution. New data sources combined with those already available make it possible to create a complete information framework, which is available to operators providing them an integrated view of the context and ability to boost a well-informed and efficient decision-making process. The platform can autonomously track potential critical events such as fires, support urban mobility, or monitor critical infrastructures, providing valuable information to decision-makers.

Supporting the city’s strategic activities

For urban security, X-2030 supports the integrated management of operating rooms for the monitoring of environmental and anthropogenic events, prevention of risks such as fires and hydrogeological instability, management of major events and demonstrations. The platform also offers valuable help in urban management: from mapping settlements and buildings to the optimised planning of urban interventions, to territorial protection and waste management. X-2030 can also improve the management of transport fleets, monitoring their journey, the impact on traffic and the environment, for efficient and sustainable mobility. leonardo.com

X-2030 can also bring benefits to resources optimisation in the field of critical communications. Another important feature of the platform is in fact its ability to integrate different communication systems including narrowband channels and the new capabilities offered by broadband technology.

The realisation of Smart & Safe Cities, based on an integrated vision of the urban context, is one of the areas where Leonardo wants to provide a decisive contribution. In order to achieve this objective, it is essential that cities are managed using new models and advanced technological solutions, such as X-2030, to guarantee safety, environmental protection, flexible mobility and efficiency in energy management.