Urban Computing Lab

Digital technology for engaging and sustainable cities

Welcome to the Urban Computing Lab at University of Minho

Our mission is to create and disseminate new knowledge on how to explore the disruptive potential of digital services to help cities becoming more sustainable and more inclusive. To pursue this goal and seek real impact, we explore collaborative multi-disciplinary research and actively promote engagement with society, municipalities and industry.

Research Areas

Our research spans across four major research areas associated with smart cities. This focus on concrete and long-term challenges aims to consolidate the relevance of our work and potentiate our capability for societal impact.

Positioning Technologies

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Can we enable devices to find their position more accurately, more reliably and more efficiently, even in complex situations and environments?

Smart Mobility

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How can information technologies help to create new mobility paradigms for the complex challlenges of sustainable, inclusive and efficient mobility?

Locative Media

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How can we place digital information in the physical world and make it readily available to be used where it really matters?

Urban IoT

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Looking at the vast domain of technological applications in urban areas, how do we align the emerging technologies of the IoT paradigm with the required security requirements?

About Urban Computing

With information technology increasingly permeating our lives, urban space is becoming the frontline for the next big wave of digital transformation. After the office environment, with its focus on work productivity, and the personal environment, with its focus on social connectedness, the urban environment is now extending the scope of ICT innovation to the social, physical, business and political dimensions of the city. Commonly framed under the general umbrella of Smart Cities, Urban Computing is an interdisciplinary field of research at the intersection between Information Systems and several other research areas with a long tradition of urban research and practice, such as urban planning, mobility, architecture, sustainability, sociology or urban media. The Urban Computing Lab addresses this interplay between the physical, social and digital layers of the city, exploring digital innovation as a key enabler for more sustainable and more inclusive cities.