How to Use RFID Technology to Realize the Asset Management of Urban Street Lamp

With the rapid development of science and technology, everything is developing in the direction of intelligence, such as smart home appliances, smart homes, smartwatches, and so on. Technology brings great convenience to people's lives, but we can also see that while the tentacles of science and technology continue to extend, a large number of scattered infrastructure still continue to adopt the most primitive management mode, and people are still often faced with the embarrassment that intelligent technology is out of reach.

Although the slogan of building smart transportation is always in the ear, everyone is more or less faced with the following "traffic is not smart": When you go out in an emergency, you can't report your exact location when you ask for help; You can't find a public toilet after driving for half an hour in the city; The street lamp at the gate of the community has been broken for several days, and it has not been repaired for a long time. I have to remind myself of paying attention to it every time I go out. We take the most basic traffic lighting equipment as the entry point to discuss how the street lamp Internet of Things can help intelligent transportation and even the smart city?

RFID technology is successfully used in street lamp management
With the construction and development of the city, the function of the street lamp is not limited to lighting and gradually evolved into a part of the city image. Citizens have put forward higher requirements for urban construction, road lighting, and landscape lighting; While government departments hope to realize the modernization of urban lighting management so that the level of urban management and environmental beautification can reach the domestic leading position. Faced with more and more street lamps, their management problems gradually appear.

Firstly, traditional street lamp management is costly and inefficient. Street lamps are scattered, and registration, repair, and maintenance require a lot of manpower and material resources. The traditional management method is to rely on manual inspection and troubleshooting. Each inspection should not only check the lighting condition, but also the safety of the pole body and base, as well as the billboard or banner on the lamp post. If there is a construction unit nearby, inspection personnel should also strengthen inspection to ensure the safety of underground cables. These inspection items only rely on manual information collection, which is not only inefficient but also easy to miss items and make mistakes.

Secondly, there are cases of inadequate inspections, missed inspections, and delayed inspections. The inspection and maintenance of street lamps are usually carried out at night. Due to the influence of light conditions, the inspectors are prone to neglect, which will lead to inadequate inspections and missed inspections. In addition, the street lamps are widely distributed, so it is difficult for inspection personnel to patrol once a day, which is easy to cause that the street lamps on a certain road to broken for many days, but they are still delayed in maintenance. The lag of inspection brings great inconvenience to the travel safety of residents.

Thirdly, it is difficult to locate the street lamp position, which increases the difficulty of reporting for repair. There are more than tens of thousands of lamp posts in each city. Due to the geographical environment, the layout of roads, streets, and alleys is basically irregular. For a long time, citizens can only locate the street lamps by reporting the building brand or surrounding buildings. Maintenance personnel also need to inquire and search for the exact location when looking for street lamps, which leads to difficulty in reporting for the repair of street lamps. In addition, some road environment is complex, such as bridges, tunnels, high-voltage power lines, or the intersection of expressways, it is difficult to determine the specific location of street lamps. It is time-consuming and laborious to find out the specific location of street lamps. The routine maintenance and management of these street lamps by manual inspection are difficult and costly.

Fourthly, there is still a lack of a comprehensive grasp of the location and quantity of street lighting equipment. The way of manual inspection lacks the evaluation of inspection quality, the inquiry, and statistics of inspection work. It is difficult for managers to understand the status of street lamps timely, accurately, and comprehensively, and to formulate the best maintenance and repair plan.

The disadvantages of manual inspection are increasingly criticized. How to use modern technology to solve the problem of street lamp management, build intelligent transportation and the smart city has become social thinking.

The development of the Internet of Things and RFID technology has brought solutions to the management problems of street lamps. The Internet of Things relies on RFID technology, Internet technology, communication technology, and other modern technologies to realize the "connection between things". If the scattered streetlights are connected and woven into a streetlight management network, the operation of streetlights can be seen at a glance in the background, which will greatly improve the management efficiency. At present, Dalian and Nanjing have promoted the pilot of RFID street lamp electronic sign technology and opened a new mode of operation and maintenance of information street lamp facilities.

RFID street lamp electronic sign, as the name implies, is to paste a piece of RFID tag containing the road section information, street lamp number, regional information, and other data resources on each street lamp pole. In case of any defective street lamp found in the inspection, the inspector only needs to quickly identify the RFID chip information in the electronic identification board of the street lamp with the hand-held terminals, and then upload the fault information and location to the background of the Municipal Administration Office in real time and accurately, and report for repair in time. People can also scan the two-dimensional code on the electronic signboard of street lamps with mobile phones to report problems to street lamps accurately and quickly.

The scientific and technological innovation of street lamp electronic sign technology

The electronic sign of street lamp is a practical innovative application of RFID technology. In the traditional traffic application, the well-known automobile electronic tag is generally attached to the windshield, it is in a moving state, while the reader is relatively fixed on the gantry. But in street lamp management, the situation is just the opposite. The electronic tag is fixed on the electric pole, while the reading and writing equipment can be either hand-held or vehicle-mounted, that is, the reader and antenna are installed on the inspection vehicle to read the electronic tag while the vehicle is running.

Street lamp Internet of things weaves intelligent transportation network

The application of street lamp electronic signs is of great significance. For the street lamp management department, the street lamp electronic sign system greatly facilitates the management and maintenance of the street lamps.

First of all, the electronic signboard system of street lamp adopts advanced RFID technology, which can realize automatic identification of street lamp during patrol inspection, and ensure the arrival rate of inspection. At the same time, it standardizes the work content of inspection personnel, avoids the occurrence of wrong inspection and missing inspection, it also helps to complete the inspection work more efficiently. The reader can accurately read the sign of the street lamp pole, which can quickly locate the faulty street lamp, facilitate the inspection personnel to remove the fault, thus reduce the time to find the problem street lamp and improve the work efficiency.

Secondly, the inspection vehicle and hand-held terminal reduce the labor intensity of inspection personnel, and realize "paperless inspection". The real-time and accuracy of asset inventory can be effectively improved by using a vehicle reader or hand-held terminal to upload data directly.

Finally, the electronic sign system of street lamp simplifies the workflow of inspection, realizes the standardization of street lamp management, improves the precision of inspection, and facilitates historical query. Through the street lamp electronic sign system, we can accurately count the number of street lamp control boxes and lamp poles, help the management department to count the total number and power of street lamps, and calculate the total length of cables and other relevant data. Depending on the electronic signboard system of the street lamps, the management department can also establish a street lamp management and maintenance account, improve the management of electrical materials, and carry out supervision and random inspection according to the actual situation.

For urban management, the street lamp electronic sign system has enhanced the service level of urban management.