scholarly journals Shared Models and Open Infrastructures for the smart City Internet of Things based on the Semantic Web

Author(s):  
Mouad Banane ◽  
Abdessalam Belangour

Contemporary cities face many challenges: energy, ecological, demographic or economic. To answer this, technological means are implemented in cities through the use of sensors and actuators. These cities are said to be smart. Currently, smart cities are operated by actors who share neither their sensor data nor access to their actuators. This situation is called vertical: each operator deploys its own sensors and actuators and has its own IT infrastructure hosting its applications. This leads to infrastructure redundancy and ad-hoc applications to oversee and control an area of the city. A trend is to move towards a so-called horizontal situation via the use of an open and shared mediation platform. Sensor data and access to the actuators are shared within this type of platform, allowing their sharing between the different actors. The costs of infrastructure and development are then reduced. This work is part of such a context of horizontalization, within an open and shared platform, in which we propose: 1) a layer of abstraction for control and supervision of the city, 2) a competition control mechanism handling conflict cases based on the RDF (Resource Description Framework) semantic Web standard, 3) a coordination mechanism promoting the reuse of actuators using ontology, 4) an implementation of our work by a proof of concept. The abstraction we propose is based on models from reactive systems. They aim to be generic and represent the invariant of the smart city: the physical elements. They allow applications to control and supervise the city. To facilitate the development of applications we standardize the interface of our models. Since these applications may have real-time constraints, especially those that have control objectives, we propose to take advantage of the distributed architecture of this type of platform. Given the sharing of the actuators, we have identified that conflicts can arise between applications. We propose a mechanism of competition control to deal with these cases of conflicts. We have also identified that a coordination mechanism must be offered to applications wishing to perform atomic control operations. Such a mechanism promotes the reuse of the actuators present in the city. Finally, we implemented our proposals around a proof of concept, including several use cases, to demonstrate our work.

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (13) ◽  
pp. 4511
Author(s):  
Martin Bauer ◽  
Luis Sanchez ◽  
JaeSeung Song

For the last decade the Smart City concept has been under development, fostered by the growing urbanization of the world’s population and the need to handle the challenges that such a scenario raises. During this time many Smart City projects have been executed–some as proof-of-concept, but a growing number resulting in permanent, production-level deployments, improving the operation of the city and the quality of life of its citizens. Thus, Smart Cities are still a highly relevant paradigm which needs further development before it reaches its full potential and provides robust and resilient solutions. In this paper, the focus is set on the Internet of Things (IoT) as an enabling technology for the Smart City. In this sense, the paper reviews the current landscape of IoT-enabled Smart Cities, surveying relevant experiences and city initiatives that have embedded IoT within their city services and how they have generated an impact. The paper discusses the key technologies that have been developed and how they are contributing to the realization of the Smart City. Moreover, it presents some challenges that remain open ahead of us and which are the initiatives and technologies that are under development to tackle them.


2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-128
Author(s):  
Jason Cohen ◽  
Judy Backhouse ◽  
Omar Ally

Young people are important to cities, bringing skills and energy and contributing to economic activity. New technologies have led to the idea of a smart city as a framework for city management. Smart cities are developed from the top-down through government programmes, but also from the bottom-up by residents as technologies facilitate participation in developing new forms of city services. Young people are uniquely positioned to contribute to bottom-up smart city projects. Few diagnostic tools exist to guide city authorities on how to prioritise city service provision. A starting point is to understand how the youth value city services. This study surveys young people in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, and conducts an importance-performance analysis to identify which city services are well regarded and where the city should focus efforts and resources. The results show that Smart city initiatives that would most increase the satisfaction of youths in Braamfontein  include wireless connectivity, tools to track public transport  and  information  on city events. These  results  identify  city services that are valued by young people, highlighting services that young people could participate in providing. The importance-performance analysis can assist the city to direct effort and scarce resources effectively.


Smart Cities ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 819-839
Author(s):  
Luís B. Elvas ◽  
Bruno Miguel Mataloto ◽  
Ana Lúcia Martins ◽  
João C. Ferreira

The smart city concept, in which data from different systems are available, contains a multitude of critical infrastructures. This data availability opens new research opportunities in the study of the interdependency between those critical infrastructures and cascading effects solutions and focuses on the smart city as a network of critical infrastructures. This paper proposes an integrated resilience system linking interconnected critical infrastructures in a smart city to improve disaster resilience. A data-driven approach is considered, using artificial intelligence and methods to minimize cascading effects and the destruction of failing critical infrastructures and their components (at a city level). The proposed approach allows rapid recovery of infrastructures’ service performance levels after disasters while keeping the coverage of the assessment of risks, prevention, detection, response, and mitigation of consequences. The proposed approach has the originality and the practical implication of providing a decision support system that handles the infrastructures that will support the city disaster management system—make the city prepare, adapt, absorb, respond, and recover from disasters by taking advantage of the interconnections between its various critical infrastructures to increase the overall resilience capacity. The city of Lisbon (Portugal) is used as a case to show the practical application of the approach.


i-com ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-193
Author(s):  
Daniel Wessel ◽  
Julien Holtz ◽  
Florian König

Abstract Smart cities have a huge potential to increase the everyday efficiency of cities, but also to increase preparation and resilience in case of natural disasters. Especially for disasters which are somewhat predicable like floods, sensor data can be used to provide citizens with up-to-date, personalized and location-specific information (street or even house level resolution). This information allows citizens to better prepare to avert water damage to their property, reduce the needed government support, and — by connecting citizens locally — improve mutual support among neighbors. But how can a smart city application be designed that is both usable and able to function during disaster conditions? Which smart city information can be used? How can the likelihood of mutual, local support be increased? In this practice report, we present the human-centered development process of an app to use Smart City data to better prepare citizens for floods and improve their mutual support during disasters as a case study to answer these questions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (22) ◽  
pp. 10712
Author(s):  
Wilson Nieto Bernal ◽  
Keryn Lorena García Espitaleta

The goal of this research is to design a framework to develop an information technology (IT) maturity model to guide the planning, design, and implementation of smart city services. The objectives of the proposed model are to define qualitatively and measure quantitatively the maturity levels for the IT dimensions used by smart cities (IT governance, IT services, data management and infrastructure), and to develop an implementation model that is practical and contextualized to the needs of any territory that wants to create or improve smart city services. The proposed framework consists of three components: a conceptual model of smart city services, IT dimensions and indicators, and IT maturity levels. The framework was validated by applying it to a case study for the evaluation of the IT maturity levels for the city of Cereté, Colombia.


2021 ◽  
pp. 237-252
Author(s):  
Elena Laudante

The paper focuses on the importance of robotics and artificial intelligence inside of the new urban contexts in which it is possible to consider and enhance the different dimensions of quality of life such as safety and health, environmental quality, social connection and civic participation. Smart technologies help cities to meet the new challenges of society, thus making them more livable, attractive and responsive in order to plan and to improve the city of the future. In accordance with the Agenda 2030 Program for sustainable development that intends the inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable city, the direction of growth and prosperity of urban environments is pursued by optimizing the use of resources and respecting the environment. In the current society, robotic technology is proposed as a tool for innovation and evolution in urban as well as industrial and domestic contexts. On the one hand the users-citizens who participate dynamically in the activities and on the other the new technological systems integrated in the urban fabric. Existing urban systems that are “amplified” of artificial and digital intelligence and give life to smart cities, physical places that allow new forms of coexistence between humans and robots in order to implement the level of quality of life and define “human centered” innovative solutions and services thus responding to the particular needs of people in an effective and dynamic way. The current city goes beyond the definition of smart city. In fact, as said by Carlo Ratti, it becomes a "senseable city", a city capable of feeling but also sensitive and capable of responding to citizens who define the overall performance of the city. The multidisciplinary approach through the dialogue between designers, architects, engineers and urban planners will allow to face the new challenges through the dynamics of robot integration in the urban landscape. The cities of the future, in fact, will be pervaded by autonomous driving vehicles, robotized delivery systems and light transport solutions, in response to the new concept of smart mobility, on a human scale, shared and connected mobility in order to improve management and control of the digitized and smart city. Automation at constant rates as the keystone for urban futures and new models of innovative society. Through the identification of representative case studies in the field of innovative systems it will be possible to highlight the connections between design, smart city and "urban" robotics that will synergically highlight the main "desirable" qualities of life in the city as a place of experimentation and radical transformations. In particular, parallel to the new robotic solutions and human-robot interactions, the design discipline will be responsible for designing the total experience of the user who lives in synergy with the robots, thus changing the socio-economic dynamics of the city.


Author(s):  
Qutaiba Ibrahim Ali ◽  
Mustafa Siham Qassab

Abstract : In the last few decades, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has been introduced which aims to bring more comfort to human life by integrating smartness into daily objects, yields to the idea of the smart city. Guaranteeing the well-being of residents and assessing industry and urban planning from an ecological and sustainable perspective are the main goals for the smart city. Great potentials are brought to the public and civil areas by the Aerial Ad Hoc Network (AANET) concept, especially in applications that are risky to human lives. AANET, like any emerging technology, comes with many challenges that have to be overcome to be employed efficiently. In this paper, we make a detailed survey on current literature, standards, and projects of self-organizing AANET in smart cities. Also, we intend to present a profound knowledge of this active research area by identifying features, design characteristics, architectures, routing protocols, and security aspects for the design and implementation of self-organizing AANET. Furthermore, we discuss existing solutions, indicate assessment metrics along with current applications, finally we highlight the main research scope for further developments. This article surveys the work done toward AANET-related outstanding issues, intending to encourage further research in this field.


Author(s):  
Hung Viet NGO ◽  
◽  
Quan LE ◽  

The world’s population is forecasted of having 68% to be urban residents by 2050 while urbanization in the world continues to grow. Along with that phenomenon, there is a global trend towards the creation of smart cities in many countries. Looking at the overview of studies and reports on smart cities, it can be seen that the concept of “smart city” is not clearly defined. Information and communication technology have often been being recognized by the vast majority of agencies, authorities and people when thinking about smart city but the meaning of smart city goes beyond that. Smart city concept should come with the emphasizing on the role of social resources and smart urban governance in the management of urban issues. Therefore, the "smart city" label should refer to the capacity of smart people and smart officials who create smart urban governance solutions for urban problems. The autonomy in smart cities allows its members (whether individuals or the community in general) of the city to participate in governance and management of the city and become active users and that is the picture of e-democracy. E-democracy makes it easier for stakeholders to become more involved in government work and fosters effective governance by using the IT platform of smart city. This approach will be discussed more in this paper.


2017 ◽  
pp. 453-475
Author(s):  
Michael Batty ◽  
Andrew Hudson-Smith ◽  
Stephan Hugel ◽  
Flora Roumpani

This chapter introduces a range of analytics being used to understand the smart city, which depends on data that can primarily be understood using new kinds of scientific visualisation. We focus on short term routine functions that take place in cities which are being rapidly automated through various kinds of sensors, embedded into the physical fabric of the city itself or being accessed from mobile devices. We first outline a concept of the smart city, arguing that there is a major distinction between the ways in which technologies are being used to look at the short and long terms structure of cities, and we then focus on the shorter term, first examining the immediate visualisation of data through dashboards, then examining data infrastructures such as map portals, and finally introducing new ways of visualising social media which enable us to elicit the power of the crowd in providing and supplying data. We conclude with a brief focus on how new urban analytics is emerging to make sense of these developments.


2022 ◽  
pp. 130-150

The main purpose of this chapter is to present how a smart city is governed, managed, and operated. It describes smart city governance and identifies the special relation the government of the city would have with the citizens as well as communities. In addition, governance considerations related to operations are described, including critical city government challenges. The second important topic in this chapter is the City-Citizens Relations highlighting urban growth, needed investments, and role of smart technologies in the city development. In addition, other issues include strategic goals of smart cities, strategic framework for city governments, and financing smart city projects.


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