Community Partners in Residence (CPR) Program – Meeting 3

On Tuesday, January 16, 2024, the NSF Center for Smart StreetScapes (CS3) held its third Community Partners in Residence (CPR) Program workshop. This meeting was originally scheduled for January 9th, but had to push to the next week due to a snowstorm in NYC on the 9th.

Once again convened and led by Ester Fuchs, Chief Social Impact Officer of the CS3 and Professor of International and Public Affairs and Political Science at Columbia University, the purpose of this workshop was how 5G bandwidth, latency, and density capabilities meet situational demands, while protecting privacy and community trust; and Exploring next-generation wireless network design, edge-cloud coordination, and real-time optimization infrastructures.

The session began with a presentation by Jorge Oritz, Assistant Professor of ECE at the Rutgers School of Engineering and Streetscape Apps Lead for CS3, who overviewed the potential for a new generation of wireless communication technology to further CS3’s goals. He began by reiterating broad objectives of the project, namely, to improve the livability of Harlem as defined by the criteria of “safety” and “inclusivity.” “Safety” refers to the level of access residents have to critical services such as traffic monitoring and first response infrastructure, while “inclusivity” encompasses the degree to which the streetscape can facilitate interactivity between its community members. He then continued to introduce the advantages of new 5G and Wi-edge computing systems, as pertains to their applications in streetscape improvements. Firstly, they allow for low-latency transmission and processing, meaning deployed computer systems can communicate with each other more rapidly on-site. Secondly, they may be used within a hyper-local scope, such as a single intersection, allowing for a notably higher degree of camera and sensor precision. These properties were then demonstrated via a video of a blind individual using a mobility assistance system to cross an intersection. In the video, the subject gestured to the system before being directed using a personal navigation application. Cameras picking up the subject’s gesture were able to identify and subsequently allow the system to direct the person within a matter of seconds via an installed app on their phone. Concerns by CPRs regarding the potential vulnerability of someone visibly using the system and thereby marking his or herself as a target for bad actors were assuaged by being informed of a new model being developed so as to detect and identify individuals in need of assistance without any overtly visual cueing needed whatsoever.

The session then continued with a presentation by Gil Zussman, Vice Chair of the Electrical Engineering Department at Columbia University and Wi-Edge Research Lead for CS3. Prof. Zussman focused on introducing the purpose and capabilities of the COSMOS test bed, a section of Harlem between Columbia University and City College of New York’s campuses denoted by the FCC for wireless technology experimentation. He provided a brief overview of the various “nodes” being deployed for use in experiments, including antennae deployed atop the roof of Columbia’s Mudd building on 120th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, and other camera clusters across the COSMOS area. The purpose and intent of the COSMOS area is to be more of a testbed that provides capabilities to various researchers—remotely or otherwise—to run experiments using this new class of technology, such as the aforementioned crosswalk demonstration. Importantly COSMOS itself is not designed to provide a solution to any one specific research question, i.e. it does not serve as a public safety, health, or surveillance mechanism in and of itself. Aside from the main area, COSMOS also includes small, indoor systems within controlled settings that are similarly for-rent to researchers. The project also includes a K-12 education kit.

There were questions from the CPRs on how this project could work alongside the citizens on the streets within the COSMOS area, given existing hostility towards telecom companies which have purchased rooftops for their own network infrastructure, in addition to public concerns regarding the health and safety implications of 5G networking. Prof Zussman addressed these questions by assuring that any rooftops being used for this project are all already owned by Columbia (in part due to a lack of budget to purchase additional rooftop space), and that the wavelengths of light in question are generally safe for use in human-oriented contexts. The ubiquity of Wi-Fi and cell service demonstrates this.

Once presentations concluded, the CPRs were given time to collaborate and reflect via breakout sessions & whiteboards facilitated by the CS3 CPR Comm Engagement staff. The CPRs then reconvened to report back to the room. Overall, many expressed that they had learned much pertaining to how the technology could be used, in no small part due to the videos, examples, and layman’s explanations provided during the presentations. They were also reassured by CS3’s intentions to explore similarly in international initiatives, and by the fact that Columbia is collaborating with a number of universities on this project, though it is still in its early stages.

With this in mind, there were still several concerns left unaddressed. CPRs mentioned that educating the public on these types of technologies would be critical for their adoption as things stand. Questions on how the technology could be compromised, either digitally or physically, were also common amongst all 3 breakout groups. In addition, they mentioned wanting to expand the use cases for edge computing and mm-wave enabled technologies to address public safety concerns, such as cyclist-originating traffic incidents, the need to create a true translational language for all of the science and tech for regular citizens to be able to fully understand, and the need to bolster historical education efforts with the opportunity that AR presents, given Harlem’s collective identity. There were also the expected information privacy concerns.

The workshop concluded with Prof. Fuchs informing everyone that a deck with a data sample from the pre-workshop survey that all CPRs completed prior to the start of these sessions would be shared and discussed in more detail at the next session.

CPR workshops are invite-only. If you are interested in attending a workshop or learning more about CS3’s community engagement process, please contact our team at streetscapes@columbia.edu.