Aarhus City Lab

At Aarhus City Lab we work with the development, testing and demonstration of new technologies.

With the city as a living test area for technology and Smart City solutions, we want to strengthen the innovation and application of digital green solutions in Aarhus Municipality based on emerging technologies.

Aarhus City Lab is a place where dialogue and partnerships flourish. We work proactively to build bridges between the municipality, entrepreneurs, companies, researchers, students, and citizens to make Aarhus a strong platform for testing and developing new digital solutions that support the green transition, job creation, increased competitiveness, and digital skills.

Aarhus City Lab has a future-oriented and investigative approach to new technological possibilities that can help solve the city's challenges. And with the human and ethical aspects in mind, we provide public facilities for test and product development aiming to create radical digital innovation for the public sector. ​

We are based in the City of Aarhus but as active players in cross-regional, national, and international projects and collaborations we often join partnerships representing the Municipality of Aarhus as well as the 16 municipalities across central Jutland through the initiative ‘GovTech Midtjylland’.

Along with testing and showcasing the technology, our ambition is to also discuss the societal implications such as privacy versus surveillance, data ethics, aesthetics in the urban environment, human decision making versus artificial intelligence, open data and much more.

With the real urban life and environment, our whole city is a living lab where infrastructure, open data and users are right at our disposal given the right test case. We have already launched a range of test sites where we have tested products and technology with both the private and public sector, and we continuously expand our capacities for testing facilities and possible development projects.

Testing facilities:  

Havnepladsen – The Harbor of Aarhus

• A dedicated area by the harbor between Dokk1 and Navitas ideal for testing autonomous robots and displaying innovative solutions that contribute to the development of the city.
• Big Screen for dissemination
• Access to satellite-based navigation system (TAPAS) offering 1 cm-level accuracy.
• Wi-Fi, 5G (coming soon)

IoT – Infrastructure (LoRaWAN - network)

• The entire geographical area of Aarhus Municipality is covered by the municipally owned Low Power Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) useful for IoT-solutions.
• Backed by OS2IoT transmission platform.

TAPAS – high accuracy GPS-technology

• TAPAS offers 1 cm-level accuracy in real-time in even the most challenging urban environment which makes Aarhus a reliable place for testing tracking solutions or similar.
• With 11 very densely positioned GNSS reference stations and only 10 km distance between each of them, TAPAS is a very accurate and stable system.
• TAPAS data can be accessed free of charge for R&D purposes.

Skodrobot - Butty

The ‘skodrobot’ or ‘Butty’ in English, a robot developed and trained to collect cigarette butts, is a concrete result of a collaborative project between Municipality of Aarhus and local tech companies Capra Robotics and KK Tech.

In addition to adding instant benefits to the environment it also becomes a first mover in the early steps towards a new era of autonomous robots in the city. The goal is for the robot to autonomously move around selected streets and squares in the city center of Aarhus removing cigarette butts using a suction mechanism.

Aarhus City Lab is a partner in both TechCircle – the European Digital Innovation Hub of Central Denmark and the European AI and robotics Testing and Experimental Facilities (TEF) Citcom.ai.

Feel free to contact us for additional information at aarhuscitylab@aarhus.dk