Chicago's department of transportation has installed the first pair of units containing a computer, camera, and sensors in their "Array of Things" project, and they expect to have 500 of them up and running across the city by the end of 2018. That assumes, of course, that they aren't shot to pieces by the end of 2018, so good luck with that.
Catlett and other proponents of the Array of Things say the big data it collects will help the city run smarter by tracking traffic patterns, detecting flooding and analyzing air quality in certain neighborhoods, among other things.
Air quality monitoring might be one thing, but you don't need big data in a place like Chicago to detect traffic patterns: if there's a road, there will be traffic on it. Want to detect flooding? Look out the window.
The project is a collaboration between the University of Chicago, Argonne National Laboratory and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. AT&T is the internet provider for the project, which is backed by a $3.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation.
Ah yes - big federal money. There we go.
