IEEE recently released a number of forecast on technology trends to watch for in 2024 that will impact BICSI members. These involve the Foundational Technologies, Mobility and Energy sectors. Read on to find out how you’re impacted.
- Foundational Technologies involve emerging technologies shaping societal connection and charting a path for advancement.
As we enter a new phase of the digital era, the convergence of trends is reshaping our lives – whether it’s the symbiotic relationship between the metaverse and AI, or the critical role of trust and data governance in our increasingly connected communities, a major evolution is taking place.
In anticipation of their profound impact, IEEE SA has identified four key future-focused trends expected to shape the foundational technology landscape for 2024 and beyond.
Evolution of the Metaverse
An immersive digital realm, be it a virtual reality universe, augmented reality extension, or digital twin, the metaverse’s expansion finds a compelling ally in AI. Instead of overshadowing it, AI is poised to fuel the metaverse’s ascent, reciprocally benefiting from its growth. Generative AI emerges as a vital catalyst—powering the supply side by expediting the creation of diverse virtual worlds and objects. Similarly, on the demand side, while AI augments human productivity, it also reshapes labour dynamics, creating new job avenues within the metaverse.
This collaboration between the metaverse and AI is becoming an incubator for AI advancement itself. The metaverse serves as an invaluable training ground for AI, offering cost-effective and risk-mitigated environments for AI development. For instance, it enables complex simulations like testing autonomous driving in different virtual terrains, revolutionising AI research and development.
To help drive the industry forward, IEEE is actively developing multiple standards relevant to the metaverse. IEEE P2048 emerges at a time when the metaverse industry is nascent, enveloped in significant hype, confusion, and misconceptions. The absence of consensus on even the most rudimentary terminology, definitions, and classification not only misguides early adopters but also needlessly impedes progress. This standard stands out as it aims to provide a standardized vocabulary and a direct roadmap tailored for metaverse developers, and seeks to establish a comprehensive metaverse lexicon, incorporating categorizations and hierarchical structures. Its objective is to forge a shared understanding, laying the groundwork for ongoing discussions, fostering sustainable development in metaverse-related pursuits, and nurturing a robust and progressive metaverse market.
Building Trust with Data Governance
As the world becomes increasingly connected, an emphasis will continue to be placed on human values including Trust, Identity, Privacy, Protection, Safety, and Security (TIPPSS).
The importance of TIPPSS in healthcare is evident – as digital-health records become more prevalent, ensuring the privacy and security of sensitive information is crucial. Identity-verification mechanisms need to be robust to prevent unauthorised access, while also being user-friendly for healthcare-providers and patients.
Security features like encryption and multi-factor authentication can protect data from being intercepted, and identity verification can prevent unauthorised access to a user’s device or accounts. In these instances, adhering to the principles of TIPPSS builds trust and ensures the ethical use of technology. As we continue to embrace digital transformation, these principles will become increasingly important in safeguarding human values.
Several IEEE standards focus on safeguarding privacy and security. For example, IEEE P2933 ‘Standard for Clinical IoT Data and Device Interoperability with TIPPSS’ addresses clinical IoT devices, interoperability within healthcare systems, electronic medical records, future devices and connected healthcare systems.
- The Mobility sector’s transformation is making vehicles and their production greener and more integrated into our lives. IEEE expects the trends in electric autonomous vehicles, virtual homologation, and ethical AI to have a huge impact on society and our industry.
Electric Autonomous Vehicles
Moving toward a more sustainable future, demand for electric autonomous vehicles (AV-Es) is growing rapidly. With manufacturers new to the market and legacy brands offering consumers more choices, the future of mobility is looking more sustainable than ever before. AV-Es offer several benefits to consumers and the environment, including:
- Reduced greenhouse gas emissions;
- Increased safety by decreasing human error – the cause of 94% of serious collisions; and
- Less traffic congestion, leading to faster travel times.
Despite such advances, scientists still have concerns with AV-Es. Vehicles must be tested in multiple conditions and ensure that they are secure from cyber threats. Looking ahead, we can expect to see more safety and cybersecurity standards introduced to address these critical issues.
This year, more AV-Es are expected to released. By combining the benefits of both electric cars and autonomous technology, these new vehicles promise to be more sustainable, safer, and more efficient than traditional cars.
Virtual Homologation
Virtual Homologation is a method of testing that allows autonomous vehicles to be evaluated using simulations and digital models, instead of physical testing. It can help reduce the environmental impact of the transportation industry by reducing the number of required physical tests, which can lead to lower energy consumption, reduced carbon emissions and more sustainable outcomes.
Ethical AI
Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs) leverage both Connected Vehicle (CV) and Automated Vehicle (AV) technologies by using wireless exchange of data to allow vehicles to communicate with one another and with the roadway infrastructure.
CVs receive and send alerts by communicating in the following ways:
- Vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V): real-time communication and data exchange between vehicles, where vehicles capture, send, and transport signals that proactively alert drivers of potential hazards.
- Vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I): data exchange between vehicle and nearby infrastructure like smart-sensors installed in road signs, streetlights, and traffic lights.
- Vehicle-to-pedestrian (V2P): collision warnings and pedestrian detections enabled by in-vehicle camera systems such as Light Detection and Radar (LiDAR) technology to generate collision warnings and detect pedestrians to alert drivers.
- Vehicle-to-Everything (V2E): data is transmitted to Transportation Management Centre (TMC) for analysis, including demand management, travel times and incident response.
Automated driving will rely on LiDAR, cameras, radar, and inertial sensors to provide situational awareness. Connectivity adds a new layer of information to augment what sensors can detect while enabling proactive information management to inform the vehicle what to do.
CAVs will leverage data and AI to transport people and goods—provided operators follow ethical procedures to improve safety, efficiency and access. However, with advanced sensing and AI technology, CAV standards are needed to enforce safety and cybersecurity in ensuring CAVs reduce physical harm to persons and manage dilemmas by principles of risk distribution and shared ethical principles.
Standards for CAVs infrastructure are important for the deployment of connected and automated cars. As CAV evolves, we should see standards and ethical AI being elevated to ensure the accountable use of AI technologies.
- With rapid technological advancements and an increasing emphasis on sustainability, the energy industry is seeing particularly transformative change. As energy needs grow, understanding the latest trends is important for stakeholders navigating the complex junction of innovation, policy, and environmental stewardship.
Industry response to these challenges includes innovations that help improve the infrastructure and resiliency of electric-power systems, promote sustainable practices across the sector, and ensure the continued functioning and future of the world’s energy and electric systems for years to come.
The key trends IEEE sees as shaping the energy industry’s evolution are the integration of renewable and alternative energy sources and advancements in transmission-line technology and grid-resilience.
Renewable/Alternative Energy Integration
With sustainability a major focus across the world, integrating renewable and alternative energy sources into the grid will be a continuing trend in 2024. Wind and solar technologies will remain, however other alternative energies including electric-vehicle integration and resurgence of nuclear power, plus advancements in energy storage systems will propel the industry forward.
Wind, solar and hydroelectric power and their associated integration technologies will have the biggest impact on available energy sources as renewable and low-carbon energy technologies continue their integration into the grid and reduce our reliance on coal and natural gas. While the past few years have focused on initial integration and management, with today’s expanded knowledge, we can now expect to see a more streamlined process, better-established safety measures, and cybersecurity protocols.
Electric Vehicles (EVs) and Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) Integration
Increasing in importance are EVs and V2G integration. In the last two decades regulators have identified traditional internal combustion engines as a large contributor of greenhouse gas emissions; while consumers and regulators have pressed the automotive industry for sustainability initiatives to reduce emissions. EV market-share continues to grow, reaching 7.6% of the overall vehicle market in 2023.
As the number of EVs increase, so will the number of consumers using V2G charging. Since this technology enables the transfer of electricity stored in an electric vehicle’s battery back to the grid, how to effectively manage this will become increasingly relevant. New standards for how to manage fast-charging loads and how to permit vehicles to charge will be a focus as these factors can largely impact the overall system.
Nuclear Energy
While not widespread yet, in the future we may see a resurgence of low-carbon nuclear energy sources being seriously considered to offset emissions. Ongoing climate crises and mounting pressure to find reliable, low-carbon power alternatives have led governments to reconsider using nuclear energy.
The resurgence comes on the back of scientific advancements in nuclear technology. For example, recent advancements have led to the development of small modular nuclear reactors. With nuclear-power integration becoming more viable, the safety of nuclear energy integrations will be critical. Additionally, global energy leaders will focus on rigorous assessment of the construction of new plants and modular reactors, maintenance of aging plants, and development of nuclear components. To aid in this, the IEEE Nuclear Power Electrical Equipment Certification Program aims to improve nuclear safety by helping to certify components to meet the widely accepted qualification requirements of IEEE 60780-323, IEEE 344, and other related IEEE nuclear standards.
IEEE works alongside industry stakeholders to develop standards that address all areas of alternative energy integration. In 2024, evolving iterations to standards like IEEE 1547 and IEEE 2800 will address a wider range of issues that may occur during the integration, interconnection, or interoperability of distributed energy sources like renewables or electric vehicles with the associated electric power system interfaces.
Additionally, with the grid having a higher penetration of renewables and alternative forms of energy, such systems may need to operate differently to support this. In the coming years, more changes to standards like IEEE 1547 and IEEE 2800 will be made to accommodate the high penetration of inverters.
Grid Resilience
Recently, natural disasters and the global uptick in extreme temperatures have exposed critical weak spots in electric power systems across the world; while aging infrastructure has been further tested by these unexpected climate events. Deteriorating power-line connections, or poorly managed grid integrations, the potential for compromised infrastructure has prompted concern from regulators and consumers for the last decade.
In light of this, key players are collaborating on solutions that address long-term grid-resiliency. IEEE has facilitated the creation of standards of operation and maintenance that contribute to grid-resiliency. Groups within IEEE have produced research analysing major power system failures and issues, and have presented potential solutions. For example, the IEEE Power and Energy Society (IEEE PES) published a report analysing the 2021 US freeze-event. This storm was more intense than the region was equipped to handle and left millions of people without power for days. The IEEE PES report analysed the overarching conditions and underlying issues of the disaster to provide takeaways from the experience.
Throughout 2024, IEEE expects to see organisations continue to work together to find solutions for protecting and reinforcing weak points within global power systems. Defining how resilience is measured in different contexts and how it can be assessed through calculations and sampling will be crucial to getting resiliency improvement efforts into the real world where extraordinary weather events become commonplace. Several standards, procedures, innovative technologies, and reinforced materials will be the main agents used to address and improve grid resiliency to ensure that power grids across the world can provide safe and reliable electric power for years to come.