23rd World Smart Systems and Micromachine Summit. MMS2017

Chairperson’sSummary

23rd World Smart Systems and Micromachine Summit. MMS2017
Chairperson's Summary
The 23rd World Micromachine Summit (MMS2017) was held in Barcelona, Spain, during theperiod 15-17 May 2017. The Summit was attended by delegates from 21 countries andsupranational regions from across the world. This Summit edition was organized by Centre
Nacional de Microelectrònica (IMB-CNM-CSIC) in Barcelona, Spain.
The Summit's objective was to discuss recent activities and trends in national and international
cooperation between universities, research institutions and industrial companies that areactive in the fields of Smart Systems, MEMS &Nanotech and Micromachine technology, and tofoster the exchange between international regions.
The summit started with country/regional reviews of news and main activities and tendencies
in Smart Systems and MEMS-Micromachines research and industrial activity. A special focus
was put in Smart Systems Applications. The delegates presented an overview of the actions
being made in each region to create and expand new Infrastructure, networks and clusters andto set-up new initiatives by National Authorities and Industry in support of the growth of theactivity in the field, both in the research and commercial arenas. There is common agreementthat Micro and Nanotechnologies are really Key Enabling Technologies (KET’s) that may have a
direct impact on the development of new products and new solutions to Societal Challenges.
The increasing number of start-ups and small companies being born worldwide in the last year
in the field of Smart Systems and Micro&Nano components is a good key indicator of activity.
In the different sessions of the Summit, interesting state of the art technologies anddevelopments for many applications were presented by the delegates, paying special attention
on Health and Wearables, Food and Environment, Safety and Security, Industry 4.0, DigitalSociety, and Internet of Things (IoT). IoT was seen by many of the delegates as the 3rd wave ofproliferation of MEMS sensors after Automotive and Consumer Electronics.
In addition, the Special Topic of this year "Smart Systems for Smart Cities applications” wasaddressed in different sessions and round tables with systems integrators, end users andurban decision makers. Recent demographic studies point to the fact that half of the world
population live in cities of more of 300.000 inhabitants (>70% by 2050). In a decade a quarterof the population will live in 600 cities producing 60% of the world GDP. Currently there are 25
cities with more than 10 million people. Cities of any order occupy just 3% of the Earth’s land,
but account for 60-80% of energy consumption and 75% of carbon emissions. Another recent
study in Europe has identified 33 areas of 1 km2 with more than 40,000 inhabitants. Nonsurprisingly, the United Nations has included in its Sustainable Development Goals one
dedicated to Sustainable Cities and Communities. Such sustainability will demand somesmartness arising from the data treatment of a huge amount of key parameters coming fromsensors and multi-sensing systems deployed in various application scenarios in the cities.
Smart Cities are multidimensional cases as they cover not only big cities, but also particularareas or small cities that may have different priorities or needs. The concept of Smart Cities
also takes into account specificities of Smart Quarters, Smart Buildings or Smart Homes, withthe aim of not only addressing urban infrastructure and environmental issues but also forhaving a more citizen-centered vision. Rapid urbanization, demographic and social change,
resources scarcity and climate change put significant pressure on city systems, services and on23rd World Smart Systems and Micromachine Summit. MMS2017
citizens. In this direction concepts such as Smart Health, Smart Security, and even aspects
related to the Smart Governance should be also considered as priorities for the Smart Sensor
applications, for a better quality of life of people.
Delegates concluded that today there is already enough technology for addressing thechallenges of the most popular deployments of Smart Cities, such as for urban mobility andsmart parking, intelligent environmental control, Smart Grid and efficient lighting, watersupply infrastructure and smart metering, management of ventilation and alarms in buildings,
smart POI, etc… MEMS and Nano technologies are crucial for achieving the required
performances of such implementations in terms of low cost, low power consumption forhigher autonomy, small form factor for massive deployment but discreetly, versatility andreliability. Smart Cities have the particularity that citizens themselves can play a role in sensing
and data collection distributed schemes as carriers of smartphones acting as ubiquitous nodes.
In digitization scenarios a physical and digital layer need to concur in order to obtain acomplete solution. While focus is usually put nowadays in data processing, knowledge
extraction and data interface (Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality…), thephysical layer remains almost invisible and it is often taken for granted. However, hardware
challenges have been indeed identified for the future of Smart Cities in particular, and IoT ingeneral, in order to accomplish the “everything connected in real time everywhere” scenario.
For instance, the need of trillions of sensors, at adequate cost and autonomy and with therequired technical specifications. Another challenge is also the availability of enoughcommunication bandwidth for the transmission of vast amounts of data. This will probably
require the integration of more intelligence at the point of measurement for saving datatransmission. Development of ultra-low power microprocessors will be paramount for both
reducing the energy budget of data centers supporting Cloud services, but also for edge-ofthe-cloud processing enabling a first data digestion at the sensor node.
The Summit ended with visits to facilities in the Barcelona area, namely Hewlett Packard World
R&D Center for 3D Printing, Bioengineering Institute of Catalonia (IBEC) and the 22@ BCN
Innovation District.
And with the wish to meet again in Buenos Aires next edition to share experiences in the fieldof Smart Systems and Micromachines for the Food and Environment sectors.
Carles Cané and Luis Fonseca
Organizers
Barcelona