FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 witnessed use of cutting-edge technologies from artificial intelligence (AI) and outdoor stadium cooling systems to many other for fans to better experience the tournament. The successful organisation of World Cup has put Qatar on world stage and revealed its history, culture and heritage.
Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF) and Qatar Research, Development and Innovation (QRDI) organised recently a Research Outcome Seminar (ROS), entitled ‘Qatar FIFA 2022 World Cup: Economic and Social Legacies’ which saw experts exchanging views about Qatar’s culture and technology innovations.
Dr. Fodil Fadli, Lead PI (Principal Investigator) Qatar University and Associate Professor of Architecture and Urban Design, discussed about SPORTE.3Q project on topic of the smart integrated urban systems to manage energy – water nexus for users comfort, health and safety in stadiums and sports facilities.
Addressing the event Dr. Fadli said, “Our project is about how to deal with a smart integrated urban system to manage energy – water nexus for the users’ (athletes, fans) comfort, health and safety in stadiums and sports facilities. It is technology oriented but we have a huge impact on users, societal, and economic legacies of FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.”
Speaking about the aim and objectives of the project he noted that it is a continuity of previous projects which were used internationally previously in Europe mainly dealing with some types of sports facilities. It deals with Qatar’s stadiums and large sports facilities to host mega sports events such as the World Cup which concluded on December 18, 2022.
The aim was to reduce energy consumption by at least 30 percent. One of the major contributions was also to reduce water usage by at least 20 percent and CO2 emissions while achieving a wide range of societal and environmental benefits. Dr. Fadli said “While we were working on the project the COVID-19 pandemic happened and then we focused on providing cleaner, healthier environment either indoor or outdoor of the sport facilities. That is why we developed five modules and smart integrated systems that provides sustainable design alternatives, smart metering, integrated control, optimal decision-making and performance management.”
“We focused on stadiums located in Qatar as it was a compact World Cup and looked at eight stadiums but the focus was mainly on three use cases – Ahmed Bin Ali Stadium, Khalifa International Stadium and Al Thumama Stadium. We started using SPORTE.3Q system-platform that enables the users with Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools and Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations to manage and access the stadium’s operation. This system addresses the comfort, health, and safety of users in terms of the quality of conditioned environment (air quality, CO2 levels, and thermal comfort). It can also provide cyber-security enhancement with aspect of the management systems in the stadiums and also crowd management during the mega events with huge number of fans visiting the facility during the event. This allowed us to develop the energy water nexus efficiency, user (athletes, fans) comforts and components of health, safety, and well-being,” he added.
The system provides a user-friendly tool for managers to monitor and control their facilities. The AI-based framework provides user-focused framework in terms of health, safety, comfort and wellbeing. It also provides scalable and modular solution that complements the existing technology in the sports facilities and stadiums. Also, intelligent and interactive controls and set-points decision making scheme that accounts for energy and water consumption, weather forecasts, thermal comfort and air quality.
Also, Dr. Hamid Menouar, Senior R&D expert and product manager at Qatar Mobility Innovation Center (QMIC) talked during the event about DroneCMS: Flying infrastructure for intelligent crowd management and security for mega events. Prof. Hatem Mheni, Senior Scientific Expert – QNRF/QRDIC moderated the event.
