Croke Park stadium is being used to trial a whole range of new technologies, which it is hoped will eventually be used to make Irish cities smarter.
The Smart Stadium project – a collaboration between Dublin City Univeristy, Arizona State University, the GAA and Intel – has seen the country’s largest stadium transformed into a test bed for new technology.
A plethora of sensors and systems has been installed by Intel around GAA headquarters, to monitor a host of different variables, including the micro climate, pitch quality, crowd and traffic movement and demand for retail services.
The data is then being collected to provide a continuous stream of information that academics and businesses are analysing and exploring, with a view to turning them into useful services.
Today 70 companies converged on Croke Park to learn about the opportunities presented by the use of the stadium as a test bed to trial smart technologies, which could ultimately be developed for used to make our cities smarter.
Finding suitable test beds is a real challenge for the industry and Croke Park is considered an ideal location for one as researchers say it behaves like a microcosm of a "Smart City".
A second test bed is being developed at the Sun Devil Stadium in Arizona as part of the project.
The use of internet connected devices to make our world smarter and more efficient is known as the "Internet of Things".
It is predicted that this year there will be 4.9bn such connected devices in the world, but that the number will explode to 25bn by 2025.
By 2020, the sector is expected to be worth £25bn (€34bn) a year.
Among the technologies already being tested here are:
Sports Vantage - uses smartphones to enrich the fan experience by delivering content and extra information to them in real-time about important events in the game. The system analyses social media and broadcast feeds to detect high points in a game. A content generation engine then produces personalised content for spectators using the service, including information on players, replays, etc.
Crowd behaviour - aims to optimise how people move around the stadium. It uses CCTV footage to estimate the density of the crowd in particular locations. A heat map is then generated based on the congestion, which can then be used to work out whether extra gates or tills need to be opened, for example.
The Wearable Project - this system uses sensors to capture player movements. Fans can then see graphic-based visualisations of how their heroes play the game, and use them to emulate their motions. As well as being used for fun, it is hoped the system will be developed for use as a cheap team training aid, where players can capture and analyse their own motion and build knowledge about their performance.
