Hypervector Approximation of Complex Manifolds for Artificial Intelligence Digital Twins in Smart Cities

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 11 aims to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. Smart cities have been studied extensively as an overarching framework to address the needs of increasing urbanisation and the targets of SDG 11. Digital twins and artificial intelligence are foundational technologies that enable the rapid prototyping, development and deployment of systems and solutions within this overarching framework of smart cities. In this paper, we present a novel AI approach for hypervector approximation of complex manifolds in high-dimensional datasets and data streams such as those encountered in smart city settings. This approach is based on hypervectors, few-shot learning and a learning rule based on single-vector operation that collectively maintain low computational complexity. Starting with high-level clusters generated by the K-means algorithm, the approach interrogates these clusters with the Hyperseed algorithm that approximates the complex manifold into fine-grained local variations that can be tracked for anomalies and temporal changes. The approach is empirically evaluated in the smart city setting of a multi-campus tertiary education institution where diverse sensors, buildings and people movement data streams are collected, analysed and processed for insights and decisions.