By Jeff Goldman
The City of Los Angeles, California recently announced a plan to monitor and control all of its streetlights via a cellular network, allowing city workers to control the lights remotely from a Web browser, CNNMoney reports.
The system will identify each streetlight's location via GPS, and will allow workers to turn lights on or off and to dim them or brighten them as needed.
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I guess the GPS is needed to keep track of all those fugitive streetlights as they pull up roots and try escaping...
I was also wondering about that, too -- why can't the streetlights identify themselves, and then they look up the location in a database?
I suspect what they really mean is that workers can be driving around in a van. When they see a streetlight they want to adjust, it will use GPS to determine the van's location, so it knows which streetlight he's near. Then he uses the laptop in the van to send commands.
That's going to be an irresistible challenge to the hackers!
? jt - snipped-for-privacy@jt-mj.net
Four wheel drive allows you to get stuck in places even more inaccessible.
So how would you identify them? Pole number might work for pole-mounted streetlights but not all streetlights are pole-mounted and not all poles are owned by the city (some poles may be owned by telcos, county government, or state government). Location might work for streetlights located at a specific corner of a specific intersection, but some intersections -- particularly where a city street intersects a state or federal highway -- may have several streetlights. A city-owned parking lot can have dozens of streetlights.
Furthermore, based on my experience in the cable TV industry, I can assure you that power company pole records are not necessarily accurate. I'm sure there are readers here on T-D who will confirm that statement.
GPS is by far the most accurate method for identifying specific streetlights.
Neal McLain
If they're controlling them via the cellular network, they'll each have a unique phone number. That's how you identify them.
I don't think its all that absurd a thing, I've been in deployments of a few hundred sensors/networkable devices, and keeping track of their locations 100% accurately is quite a chore, with at least half a dozen audits to make sure it is all 100% accurate.
Also, if you need to repair/replace said thing, making sure it is all updated in the database correctly can be easily overlooked. Having them self-monitor their location and report back isn't all that bad a thing I think.
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As well it will help eliminate any location ambiguity when faults are reported by ordinary people who may give not quite accurate location information so the repair crews will know exactly where to go and what equipment they will be dealing with.
I'm confused by this. Why is this even necessary?
Today, streetlights are controlled by a photocell, automatically. When it gets dark, the streetlight goes on, when it becomes light, the streetlight goes off. If it becoms dark early, say due to a bad storm and cloud cover, the lights will go on. Why would it even be necessary to manually turn them on and off?
(When I was very young, the streetlights were controlled by a central timer, and all would go on at the same time. The timer would have to be periodically adjusted to reflect changing sundown and sunrise times. But when they replaced the incandescent with mercury vapor lamps, they put in photocells.)
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