scholarly journals Towards a Novel Air–Ground Intelligent Platform for Vehicular Networks: Technologies, Scenarios, and Challenges

Smart Cities ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 1469-1495
Author(s):  
Swapnil Sadashiv Shinde ◽  
Daniele Tarchi

Modern cities require a tighter integration with Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for bringing new services to the citizens. The Smart City is the revolutionary paradigm aiming at integrating the ICT with the citizen life; among several urban services, transports are one of the most important in modern cities, introducing several challenges to the Smart City paradigm. In order to satisfy the stringent requirements of new vehicular applications and services, Edge Computing (EC) is one of the most promising technologies when integrated into the Vehicular Networks (VNs). EC-enabled VNs can facilitate new latency-critical and data-intensive applications and services. However, ground-based EC platforms (i.e., Road Side Units—RSUs, 5G Base Stations—5G BS) can only serve a reduced number of Vehicular Users (VUs), due to short coverage ranges and resource shortage. In the recent past, several new aerial platforms with integrated EC facilities have been deployed for achieving global connectivity. Such air-based EC platforms can complement the ground-based EC facilities for creating a futuristic VN able to deploy several new applications and services. The goal of this work is to explore the possibility of creating a novel joint air-ground EC platform within a VN architecture for helping VUs with new intelligent applications and services. By exploiting most modern technologies, with particular attention towards network softwarization, vehicular edge computing, and machine learning, we propose here three possible layered air-ground EC-enabled VN scenarios. For each of the discussed scenarios, a list of the possible challenges is considered, as well possible solutions allowing to overcome all or some of the considered challenges. A proper comparison is also done, through the use of tables, where all the proposed scenarios, and the proposed solutions, are discussed.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
FARZAN SHENAVARMASOULEH ◽  
Farid Ghareh Mohammadi ◽  
M. Hadi Amini ◽  
Hamid R. Arabnia

<div>A smart city can be seen as a framework, comprised of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). An intelligent network of connected devices that collect data with their sensors and transmit them using wireless and cloud technologies in order to communicate with other assets in the ecosystem plays a pivotal role in this framework. Maximizing the quality of life of citizens, making better use of available resources, cutting costs, and improving sustainability are the ultimate goals that a smart city is after. Hence, data collected from these connected devices will continuously get thoroughly analyzed to gain better insights into the services that are being offered across the city; with this goal in mind that they can be used to make the whole system more efficient.</div><div>Robots and physical machines are inseparable parts of a smart city. Embodied AI is the field of study that takes a deeper look into these and explores how they can fit into real-world environments. It focuses on learning through interaction with the surrounding environment, as opposed to Internet AI which tries to learn from static datasets. Embodied AI aims to train an agent that can See (Computer Vision), Talk (NLP), Navigate and Interact with its environment (Reinforcement Learning), and Reason (General Intelligence), all at the same time. Autonomous driving cars and personal companions are some of the examples that benefit from Embodied AI nowadays.</div><div>In this paper, we attempt to do a concise review of this field. We will go through its definitions, its characteristics, and its current achievements along with different algorithms, approaches, and solutions that are being used in different components of it (e.g. Vision, NLP, RL). We will then explore all the available simulators and 3D interactable databases that will make the research in this area feasible. Finally, we will address its challenges and identify its potentials for future research.</div>


Author(s):  
Petr Levchaev

The purpose of the study is to develop theoretical positions, methodological approaches and practical aspects of the formation of a system of digital business solutions and the network environment of the smart city infrastructure. In accordance with the intended purpose it is supposed to solve a series of staged objectives, namely: to systematize the evolution of information and communication technologies; to identify the peculiarities of the network character of modern business and social institutions, as well as the peculiarities of the information economy and market information products and services; to substantiate the basic principles and laws of the functioning of economic entities in the information and digital economy. The practical significance of the research lies in the development of a system of digital business solutions and the network environment of the smart city infrastructure in the context of the possibilities of their synergy and singular development.


Author(s):  
H. Filiz Alkan Meshur

The purpose of this chapter is to analyze the concept of smart city and its potential solutions to correct urban problems. Smart city practices and solutions have been investigated through the lens of a sustainable perspective. As the general practices in the global scale were examined, particular focus has been directed to smart city practices in Turkey and applicable suggestions have been developed. A number of cities in Turkey rank the lowest in the list of livable cities index. Consequential to the rapidly rising population ratios, the quality of provided services declines; economic and social life in cities are adversely affected and brand images of cities are deteriorated. With the implementation of smart city practices, such problems could be corrected, and these cities could gain competitive advantage over their rivals. The key component of this smart administration is to most effectively utilize information and communication technologies during each single step of this process.


2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Jochen Scholl ◽  
Marlen Jurisch ◽  
Helmut Krcmar ◽  
Margit C. Scholl

City governments around the world have increasingly engaged in “smart city” initiatives. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are at the core of these initiatives. City governments appear to play important roles in making the urban spaces, in which they are embedded, more attractive, more competitive, more livable, and smarter. The authors interviewed City officials in Munich, Germany, and asked for the definitions of “smart city,” which they then compared to Munich's smart city-related program. While the practitioners' definitions differed in part from those in the academic literature, the smart city overhaul program at Munich city government had a direct relationship to the practitioners' understanding of smartness. The authors portray and discuss the City of Munich institutional architecture overhaul and its expected and realized benefits, and compare the results to those of an earlier study on the City of Seattle. Both city governments evidently pursue different approaches, the effectiveness of which can more readily be assessed only at a future point of the smart city evolution.


Author(s):  
Jorge Lanza ◽  
Pablo Sotres ◽  
Luis Sánchez ◽  
Jose Antonio Galache ◽  
Juan Ramón Santana ◽  
...  

The Smart City concept is being developed from a lot of different axes encompassing multiple areas of social and technical sciences. However, something that is common to all these approaches is the central role that the capacity of sharing information has. Hence, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are seen as key enablers for the transformation of urban regions into Smart Cities. Two of these technologies, namely Internet of Things and Big Data, have a predominant position among them. The capacity to “sense the city” and access all this information and provide added-value services based on knowledge derived from it are critical to achieving the Smart City vision. This paper reports on the specification and implementation of a software platform enabling the management and exposure of the large amount of information that is continuously generated by the IoT deployment in the city of Santander.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 2136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrycja Szarek-Iwaniuk ◽  
Adam Senetra

A smart city is one of the latest concepts in the development of modern cities. It has evolved from the foregoing smart cities 1.0 and 2.0 to the smart city 3.0, where members of the local community play the main role as not only the recipients of the introduced changes and modern technology, but also as the creators of urban space. One of the goals of a smart city 3.0 is to promote sustainable urban development by improving the quality of life, enhancing social participation, and involving local community members in planning and decision-making processes. This study set out to determine the role and significance of e-participation methods in the smart city concept. The results of questionnaires exploring the importance of e-participation in urban development are presented. The paper also discusses changes in the availability of information and communication technologies (ICT) in Poland. The secondary goal was to present the geo-questionnaire and Public Participation GIS (PPGIS) as modern research tools. Internet tools based on geoinformation systems have considerable potential for mobilizing social participation in spatial planning (Public Participation GIS). The present study postulates the need for modern social participation methods in shaping urban space and promoting the sustainable development of cities. The study highlights the main challenges in the research process. The cooperation between the authorities and the citizens contributes to the development of a civil society, informed decision-making, social involvement in public life, and more effective governance at the local, regional, and national level. Measures that foster cooperation between the authorities and local communities, the use of information and communication technologies (ICT), and growing social awareness and social participation in managing development are the components of a modern smart city and the building blocks of an e-society. The study also revealed positive changes in access to ICT and their contribution to bridging the digital divide in Poland. Higher levels of social awareness regarding participation and e-participation promote the growth of smart cities.


Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (23) ◽  
pp. 7000
Author(s):  
Seungmyeong Jeong ◽  
Seongyun Kim ◽  
Jaeho Kim

Like what happened to the Internet of Things (IoT), smart cities have become abundant in our lives as well. One of the smart city definitions commonly used is that smart cities solve city problems to enhance citizens’ life quality and make cities sustainable. From the perspective of information and communication technologies (ICT), we think this can be done by collecting and analyzing data to generate insights. The City Data Hub, which is a standard-based city data platform that has been developed, and a couple of problem-solving examples have been demonstrated. The key elements for smart city platforms have been chosen and they have been included in the core architecture principles and implemented as a platform. It has been proven that standard application programming interfaces (APIs) and common data models with data marketplaces, which are the keys, increase interoperability and guarantee ecosystem extensibility.


Technologies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Md Alam ◽  
Jari Porras

In terms of sustainability, cities become smart when they provide smart services to the inhabitants using information and communication technologies without threatening the future of the environment, economy, or society. However, the process of developing such sustainable smart services has certain challenges, especially in understanding the real needs of the people living in the city. Citizens or, in a wider perspective, the inhabitants of the city are the key stakeholders in the case of smart services in a city. Active involvement of the people throughout the development process is a way of successfully designing such services. On the other hand, integrating sustainability, for example, including environmental data, into smart city services is challenging. Therefore, this research aims to combine environmental data with regular smart city services, while engaging city inhabitants in the development process. This approach was adapted from the concept of living lab methodology. Finally, an application developed following this method is presented and evaluated.


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