NetZero Smart Cities offer an opportunity to explore more sustainable and liveable communities through the use of digital technologies. In the NetZeRoCities Smart Campus and Digital Twins project, this opportunity is addressed through technologies such as Digital Twins, Internet of Things, Internet of Everything, Big Data, 5G, LoRaWAN, data platforms, and data curation mechanisms. The project also considers open data access, platform interaction, and data export as relevant elements for citizens, developers, public authorities, and other stakeholders. In this context, the work is structured around two main infrastructure directions: a Living Lab environment and a Digital Twin/Open Data platform.
The Living Lab is conceived as a real-life environment that can support the testing, piloting, demonstration, and validation of innovative solutions involving relevant stakeholders. In the project, the Smart Campus concept is centred on the National University of Science and Technology POLITEHNICA Bucharest, while also allowing integration with systems and contributions from project partners. The campus is treated as the main demonstration site, and the broader Smart Campus environment is connected to partner infrastructures and use cases. This environment supports scenarios related to air quality, energy, sustainable buildings, smart lighting, traffic, mobility, and data-driven urban services.
The POLITEHNICA Bucharest campus acts as the main pilot site for the Smart Campus work. It is treated as a compact urban environment of approximately 1 km², with more than 30,000 people present daily, and with a wider university context that includes several campus assets, student infrastructure, energy-related assets, and experimental facilities. The project work includes campus assets, energy flows, greenhouse gas emissions estimation, and possible mitigation measures. The main role of the campus environment is therefore to support the implementation, monitoring, testing, and validation of solutions that may contribute to reducing the carbon footprint at campus level.
Another key component of the project is the Digital Twin, understood as a digital representation of real-world entities and processes that can support monitoring, modelling, simulation, and analysis. The Digital Twin and Open Data platform are organised around a central architecture that includes connectors to local systems, Big Data processing, testing and validation components, central data storage, and data export mechanisms. The platform is associated with data collected from IoT sensors, local partner systems, building and energy monitoring components, mobility-related sources, environmental sensors, and other smart campus infrastructures. These elements support the creation of a technical environment in which heterogeneous data can be collected, curated, stored, processed, visualised, and exposed to relevant users.
The communication and interoperability layers rely on 5G, LoRaWAN, WiFi, APIs, gateways, connectors, and secured data exchange mechanisms. The project integrates mobile communication components, IoT applications, V2X elements, embedded systems, and the central Digital Twin platform. It also addresses the connection between partner and third-party systems through standardised APIs, data models, authentication, role-based access control, and unified visualisation. This positions the platform as a hub for integrating heterogeneous data and services across the Smart Campus ecosystem.
The project also includes testing, validation, and piloting activities. These cover scenarios for air pollution monitoring, energy measurements, sustainable and intelligent buildings, smart lighting, intelligent traffic, fall detection, abandoned waste detection, citizen notification analysis, building and utility efficiency, and campus-based deployments. The piloting work includes connectivity and data transmission testing, descriptions of pilot contexts, reported results, and technical conclusions. These activities support the assessment of how Smart Campus and Digital Twin solutions can operate in real or semi-real deployment contexts.
The project further addresses exploitation, education, and dissemination from a transfer and uptake perspective. The exploitation work considers local needs, exploitable results, feasibility, standardisation, interoperability, intellectual property, licensing, support, and the “Smart City in a Box” operational model. The education and training component includes curriculum and training elements related to smart city concepts, IoT architectures, connectivity, security, and NetZero-specific solutions. The dissemination activities include visual identity, website, social media, workshops, events, public presentations, publications, and awareness actions connected to the project.
Overall, the project presents a Smart Campus and Digital Twin framework that combines physical infrastructure, data infrastructure, communication infrastructure, IoT and Internet of Everything components, open data architecture, interoperability mechanisms, testing and validation methodologies, piloting activities, and exploitation and dissemination planning. The work covers not only the technological platform, but also methodological, organisational, educational, and transfer-oriented elements. In this form, the Smart Campus acts as an environment for exploring, testing, and presenting NetZero-oriented smart city solutions, while the Digital Twin/Open Data platform provides the data-centred layer for integration, analysis, visualisation, and interaction with stakeholders.
