Arctic IoT

Purpose and goal:

The purpose of the project is to strengthen Luleå Municipality´s ability to initiate and lead collaboration of innovative IoT solutions that create societal benefit. Sustainable urban development for residents, visitors, and businesses is a basic principle. The goal is to gain more knowledge, to assure quality and to evaluate how the IoT technology works in practice in a cold arctic climate. Luleå´s ice track in the city and associated leisure activities have been central to test solutions.

Expected results and effects:

The project has, among other things, resulted in a mobile application with Map support where measurement values from IoT sensors are presented in a visual way to the target groups. The need-driven development work has resulted in knowledge about co-creative innovation and real experiences of how IoT solutions work in cold climates. An expected effect was that the prototype project would contribute to innovations for a larger market, which has been fulfilled by interest from an international company.

Approach and implementation:

The project has been led by Luleå municipality, and the partners have been Grepit AB, Lunet, Thing Wave and Luleå University of Technology. In addition to IoT expertise, the collaboration has included participatory design methodology, where the target groups have been involved in the development. The mobile App has been valuable, partly to bring together the partners´ different skills, and partly to involve the target groups. The target groups were able to test the app at the Luleå on Ice event in February 2023.