peaq’s Ecosystem & Machine Composability for Smart Cities.
If networks come together, they can form systems where different parts can be repurposed easily to unlock new levels of innovation. This is known as composability.
There are fears of a global robot takeover. While this is in no way true, robot production is on the rise.
In the future, electric vehicles, drones, robots, and other devices will smoothly collaborate, and adapt to new tasks and their surroundings with ease.
So, humans will still be in control but the machine economy will make things easier for us all, hence developing what are known as smart cities — highly connected urban environments where technology improves every aspect of daily life:
- Energy
- Transportation
- Waste management
- Healthcare, etc.
Smart city construction can reduce per capita CO2 emissions by around 18.42 logarithmic percentage points, according to ScienceDirect.
In 2015, the International Transport Forum (ITF) conducted the Lisbon Study, a detailed analysis of urban mobility, and examined a situation where private cars were replaced by shared vehicles.
Via real mobility data from Lisbon, the researchers created a computer model of Portugal’s capital city’s transportation system and totally replaced private car trips with shared vehicle options like self-driving cars, EVs, six-seater shared taxis, and larger taxi-buses seating 8 to 16 passengers, to evaluate the potential impact of such a shift.
They noted: “In the shared mobility city, only 10% or less of the number of vehicles were needed to get citizens where they wanted when they wanted. Congestion disappeared, CO2 emissions fell by one-third, and on-street parking space was no longer needed.”
The World Economic Forum (WEF) also says that blockchain decentralization can drive innovation in energy systems by enabling peer-to-peer energy trading and optimizing energy use in smart cities.
Smart cities have the potential to reduce urban energy use by up to 30% and cut emissions by as much as 40% by integrating digital and physical infrastructures. For example:
- Traffic systems can use real-time data to reduce congestion.
- Autonomous vehicles transport goods and people efficiently.
- IoT devices monitor energy usage to waste or pollution of all sorts, like noise.
While this vision sounds futuristic, current systems are far from ready because most devices running on the Internet of Things operate in isolated silos and rely on apps, accounts, and infrastructure — so many of them, for basic functionality.
This limits innovation and makes scaling Smart Cities nearly impossible, which is why breaking down these barriers and enabling devices to work together like pieces of a well-oiled machine is the only meaningful solution to the problem.
peaq calls it machine composability.
What is Machine Composability?
peaq Network, the home of DePINs, is enabling devices to smoothly interact across networks and dApps without friction.
Have you ever toyed with LEGOs?
The way all the blocks are joined together is how machines can be combined in many ways to perform various tasks.
For example, a smart home system could:
- Use one app to manage lighting and temperature settings based on user preferences.
- Switch to another app to coordinate with home security systems for monitoring and alerts.
- Access a decentralized energy grid to optimize energy consumption and recharge devices.
All of this can happen without requiring separate accounts, registrations, or human intervention.
A study by Gartner (2023) explored the future of composable architectures in the context of the Internet of Things (IoT), noting that organizations will need to embrace composable systems to handle the growing complexity of IoT networks.
“By 2026,” they said, “all the top 20 cloud platform and SaaS (that is, software as a service) providers will offer component marketplaces to enable customers’ composable strategies, differentiating by quality, convenience and security.”
At the heart of composability is peaq, a blockchain designed specifically for machines. Devices on it use peaq IDs, which serve as universal identifiers that let them interact with a range of decentralized applications (dApps) effortlessly.
The Building Blocks of Machine Composability
According to peaq, machine composability is built on two key pillars:
1. Morphological Composability
This places its focus on the physical or structural compatibility of machines. Devices equipped with peaq IDs all follow a shared standard that ensures they can work together.
For example, in a smart city, all EVs and charging stations can operate on the same system. An EV with a peaq ID can:
✓ Locate the nearest available charging station.
✓ Pay for the charge via its built-in wallet.
✓ Automatically switch to another service, such as parking or ride-sharing, once charged.
According to Bloomberg’s New Energy Finance, the cumulative value of EV sales “could hit $9 trillion dollars by 2030 and $63 trillion by 2050 in BNEF’s ETS.”
Then, we have drones, increasingly being used for deliveries. Their operations are however limited by fragmented systems.
With Machine Composability, a food drone can:
✓ Switch gear to deliver medical supplies after completing its initial task.
✓ Access charging hubs autonomously, paying for electricity using cryptocurrency.
PWC reported that 14,000 daily deliveries might “result in 5M business-to-consumer (B2C) drone deliveries worldwide in 2024,” and “this number is projected to soar to 808 million within ten years.”
Networks in peaq’s ecosystem that practice bits of morphological composability, or have the potential do that in the future include:
2. Syntactic Composability
This deals with how different apps and platforms integrate. In the peaqosystem, as their ecosystem is fondly called, dApps are made to interoperate “like puzzle pieces.”
For instance, transportation apps can connect with logistics platforms, to give services like combined package delivery, passenger rides, and what peaq calls “plug and play.”
In a smart city, infrastructure such as streetlights, waste bins, and parking meters can become part of a syntactic composable ecosystem. Here’s how that could work. Through traffic dApps:
- Smart streetlights equipped with sensors can communicate with vehicles to optimize traffic flow.
- Trash depositories can signal trucks when they’re full, reducing carbon-emitting trips.
- Parking meters can interact with EVs and provide availability + payment options, via peaq access.
Networks in the peaqosystem that run on syntactic composability or have the potential for it, include:
In 2023, Forbes noted that businesses adopting composable systems would experience enhanced flexibility, as these systems enable companies to launch and scale new services quickly. Flexibility is especially critical in smart cities, where rapid adaptation is necessary to meet dynamic needs of urban environments.
Challenges vs. Solutions
While the potential of machine composability is a huge thing, there are challenges to address.
- Standardization: Universal standards for devices and networks have to be in place, which is what peaq is handling.
- Security: It is critical to secure interactions between machines and avoid hacking and data breaches.
- Adoption: There is much difficulty in trying to convince stakeholders to transition from traditional to decentralized networks.
Fortunately, platforms like peaq already working on solutions to these challenges pave the way for the widespread adoption of machine composability.
You can now picture yourself in 2050, living in a fully composable smart city.
Your autonomous XMAQUINA-powered car drops you at work, then earns money offering rides while you’re in the office. It finds the cheapest charging station, uses peaq ID to pay the charge, and even books a parking spot for the evening — all without you lifting a finger.
Meanwhile, your home’s energy system interacts with the city grid to sell excess solar power, and, with your permission, your vacuum rents itself out to clean a neighbor’s house when it is idle.
That sounds like adulterated sci-fi, yeah?
I assure you, it’s not.
That’s the future that peaq is building.
Together, we can unlock the full potential of peaq’s concepts of decentralization to form a future that is fairer, smarter, and more connected.
Ready for it?
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