AI Takes Over Street Cleaning in Russia’s Smart Eco-City Project

Russia has kicked off a large-scale project to digitally transform its housing and utilities sector. The Advanced Engineering School 'Heart of the Urals' at South Ural State University has begun implementing the Smart Eco-City initiative, which aims to automate municipal services using artificial intelligence technologies, the school’s press service reported.

The project’s central task is to create an intelligent system for maintaining road and transport infrastructure. This new approach will radically change street cleaning by shifting it to a fully automated mode powered by computer vision and neural networks.

The system will act as an intelligent assistant for utility vehicle operators. Algorithms will analyze the level of road surface contamination in real time, identify types of debris, and automatically select the optimal cleaning modes. This includes adjusting brush pressure, vacuum suction power, and the controlled release of water for washing.

The AI will also address another critical task—preventing damage to expensive machinery by detecting large or hazardous objects in advance. By optimizing operations, the system is expected to significantly reduce energy consumption, which is crucial for modern electric-powered vehicles.

Currently, the engineering team is building a large dataset of thousands of images of various types of pollution, captured under different lighting conditions and on different road surfaces. This is essential for training the neural network to operate flawlessly in any weather and at any time of day.