Frequently Asked Questions
Review the FAQ's associated with the West Lafayette Smart City Challenge below.
How is road user safety defined?
Road user safety is defined as the prevention of bodily injury or fatality or property damage from multi-modal road traffic.
How does the city define vulnerable populations?
The city is interested in pedestrians, bicyclists, scooters, skaters, motorcyclists, etc. Basically, anyone not protected by 2500+ lbs of steel. However, the reduction of vehicle-to-vehicle collisions will also be considered as a secondary outcome.
Is this competition open only to those affiliated with Purdue University?
No. It is open to all US-based university students and faculty. Startups with fewer than 25 employees can also participate
I am a faculty member, can I apply for the challenge?
Yes, faculty members are encouraged to apply for the challenge. They can team up with other faculty members or their students.
Is there a team size requirement?
There is no cap on the team size. Individual submissions are allowed.
Can existing or established startups compete in this?
The challenge is open to startups with 25 or fewer employees. Companies with more than 25 employees may submit applications for evaluation and will be considered for selection; however, preference and priority will be given to student and faculty teams and small start-ups focused on surfacing new ideas and development of novel solutions. The application and use of existing solutions, or products is not well aligned with the aims of the challenge and these applications will be discounted accordingly.
What is the value of signing up for the helpdesk hours?
Proposals submitted by participants who have discussed their idea with the challenge sponsors tend to do better in terms of addressing the challenge statement and providing executable concepts. Helpdesk hours can be used to vet ideas and begin to explore technical and feasibility questions with Miovision, IN 5G Zone, and the City of West Lafayette.
What is a metric for how we can assess the impact (improvement in public safety)?
Police reports will contain the information that is needed including accidents, injury, injury severity, and other related traffic complaints. The current volume of incidents per year is about 5 -10. The Challenge Committee is evaluating various leading or intermediate indicators that could be used as proxy measures given the likely low frequency of reported incidents over the Challenge Timeline.
Do proposals need to only use the data available by Miovision?
No. Challenge sponsors are interested in ideas for new sources of data that can be captured with Miovision cameras or through other means. Participants can work with the Indiana5G Zone and coordinate with the city on what can be deployed and where.
Can a team propose a solution that takes physical intervention measures to improve safety?
The City of West Lafayette is interested in public safety, regardless of the type of solution. However, the challenge competition aims to leverage the use IoT and data analytics and so preference and priority will be given to applications that best align with the challenge aims.
Would it be possible manipulate the traffic controller (i.e., the ability to change the timing of the traffic lights)?
Possibly. The City of West Lafayette’s Engineering and Street Department is open to exploring and considering requests made by a challenge team during Phase II of the challenge.
What data and metadata will be made available to the teams?
Video files from WL Street cameras along State Street will be recorded and downloaded. The Challenge Committee is also exploring the ability to directly link to camera feeds via APIs.
The videos contain consistent timestamps and location IDs. At some camera locations, the cameras are capable of “counts” of pedestrians and vehicles. The video files will be in MP4 format. The following data points can be made available to the teams in phase II:
- API (Raw data): List of Active Alerts, Intersection list, Intersection Hiresdata, Traffic Message Channel (TMC), TMC by lane, TMC crosswalks, and Travel time.
- Compiled data: Congestion scan, Travel time, Approach volumes, Arrival on red, Green Allocation, Occupancy ratio, Ped compliance, Pedestrian delay, Phase interval, Purdue coordination, Red Light Running (RLR), Simple delay, Split failure, Split trend, Report card, and Counts.
- Traffic Insights Flashcard + Matrix: A flashcard set that includes data sources, definitions, and use cases of the Miovision data in our platform.
NOTE: Only teams that are selected for Phase 2 will have access to this data set subject to permission from city and platform access.
In addition, the Indiana 5G Zone is able to support the deployment of additional IoT devices and sensors along State Street should additional or supplemental information be desired by the Project Teams.
What type of data is Miovision providing- historical data or real-time feeds?
Miovision uses Machine Learning (ML) and would work with the teams to figure out what data would be most useful (a specific intersection, or a specific count).
Does Miovision cameras identify objects identified individually?
Yes.
Would Miovision share API data and video feeds?
The open API data is available. The video feeds belong to the City of West Lafayette. The City of West Lafayette’s Engineering and Street Department are open to exploring and considering requests made by a challenge team during Phase II of the challenge.
Does Miovision have access to high-res data for the intersections?
Yes. The high-res data can be accessed on the API as read-only data. The Miovision platform pulls NTCIP Protocol data.
Does Miovision use Lidar data?
Miovision does not have Lidar data. Miovision does have Wi-Fi data but does not provide direct MAC addresses.
If a participant comes up with a Deep Learning Model can it be deployed in the Miovision infrastructure?
Yes. Miovision is interested in seeing what innovation comes out of this challenge. Miovision’s architecture is like a smartphone, where apps are added on top. Miovision is open to exploring these types of solutions.
Who owns the data?
Data captured and used as part of the smart city challenge will be licensed to the Project Teams for the purpose of supporting their Challenge activities. At no time will data ownership be transferred to the project teams. At the conclusion of the Challenge, the data license will terminate and all data in possession of the project teams will need to be returned or destroyed.
How many cameras will be included and what are their locations?
The city has 19 cameras. They can all be made available, but the focus of the pilot activity will be along State Street.
Does the intellectual property (IP) belong to the company that develops it or to the Purdue Research Foundation and other challenge sponsors?
The Purdue Research Foundation, as the challenge sponsor and 501c3 non-profit entity shall have IP and publishing rights over any novel IP generated as a result of the Challenge. However, PRF shall license the IP to the generating team free of charge should the team desire to continue pursuing the technology development and commercialization.
Can a proposed solution utilize background IP or other commercially available products as part of an integrated novel solution?
Yes. Participants may propose solutions using existing background IP or other commercially available third-party software and hardware components as part of an overall solution. However, preference and priority will be given to applications with novel and innovative approaches.
PRF shall have no claim on Background IP if incorporated into a challenge solution. It is the responsibility of the challenge team to ensure they have appropriate use rights to any products or background IP incorporated into a proposed solution.
In addition to the stipend, the Phase II winning teams will also have access to mentoring and coaching support from the Technology Advisory board. The nature of support will be tailored to each team’s needs to develop a successful prototype. NineTwelve 5G/IoT Lab will provide access to our facility to assist in test and development in a lab controlled environment. We can also provide insight and assist in technical questions pertaining to network connectivity and IoT sensor integration.
If you have any questions or require any special accommodation(s) please feel free to reach out to us at challenges@us-ignite.org. You can also request a 20-minute call by filling out this form.