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IBM Watson enables Cognitive, Adaptive Streetlighting

January 16, 2017 by Jeff Shepard

Echelon Corporation today announced its collaboration with IBM Watson IoT to bring cognitive intelligence to its adaptive streetlight control platform, helping municipalities transform into smarter, safer and more sustainable cities. Echelon will infuse Watson IoT capabilities into its next-generation, adaptive LED lighting control solution to form a pervasive, more intelligent infrastructure that can easily integrate IoT applications to address municipal safety, environment and energy challenges.

IBM Watson IoT is a cognitive system that learns from and infuses intelligence into the physical world. By combining IBM Watson IoT data with Echelon’s IoT connected streetlighting architecture, municipal leaders can gain significant insights which they can use to improve public safety. IBM Watson IoT capabilities closely align with Echelon’s promise to municipalities – to enable them to more cost-effectively leverage innovations in technology that drive safety and sustainability initiatives.

“With a mission to continually advance our adaptive streetlighting solution, we are excited at the prospect of integrating the cognitive and real-time analytics capability of IBM Watson IoT into Echelon's platform to enhance its inherent intelligence,” said Sohrab Modi, Chief Technology Officer, Echelon.

“If mayors and town selectmen can have infrastructures that adapt to the data produced by billions of interconnected sensors and devices, they can positively impact crime and weather-related accident statistics. The omniscience that IBM Watson IoT will bring to our next-generation technology will be a huge asset for local and state governments,” Modi concluded.

With its Lumewave by Echelon® platform, Echelon is bringing its long-standing history in developing protocols and communication control solutions, as well as its next generation architectures for multi-application IIoT networks, to the IBM Watson IoT collaboration. The Echelon portfolio supports a wide range of lighting and building communications including LON® and LonTalk/IP, BACnet, Modbus, DALI and more for a broad selection of devices that can be easily integrated into an open platform.