CIEDAR Smart Cities Lab dedication hosted at STAR Park

<div class="newscaption">A new solar powered street light enabled with 5G Wide Area Network at Texas State University donated in part by ClearWorld. (Image credit: Jayme Blaschke)</div>

The Connected Infrastructure for Education, Demonstration and Applied Research (CIEDAR) consortium at Texas State University hosted a dedication of the CIEDAR Smart Cities Lab on Sept. 9 at the Science, Technology and Advanced Research (STAR) Park.

A new solar powered street lighting system enabled with 5G Wide Area Network installed at the site was turned on during the event. This new system will support public spaces software development and future autonomous vehicle testing at STAR Park. The system was donated in part by ClearWorld, a founding CIEDAR member, that has also committed to a software development project with Texas State.

“Clear World is a founding member of CIEDAR and they’re helping sponsor this very first phase of our Smart Cities Lab by providing these LED solar powered smart streetlights with energy storage solar generation and sensors of various kinds," said Texas State Provost Gene Bourgeois. "They’re also sponsoring projects where Texas State designers will create apps that interact with these streetlights and design the online store to market the apps created.”

“We’re really looking forward to our partnership here with CEIDAR at Texas State and looking forward to seeing how the brilliant minds at the university are able to add to our technology," said ClearWorld Vice President of Business Development Lexie Assunto. "We are located in New Orleans currently, but our goal in the very near future is to move our facility to Texas.

“This has been years in the making. The mission of ClearWorld is to provide an off-grid light source. We're located in New Orleans where our infrastructure gets a beating every year, every hurricane season, so that was the initial mission," she said. "But today we're really known for connectivity and smart grid infrastructure as it continues to develop in the market.”

The Smart Cities Lab is one on nine living laboratories under development by CIEDAR. Each lab will be developed in partnership with private industry and populated by expert faculty and students.

For more information about CIEDAR, visit www.marc.txst.edu/ciedar.html