Smart Cities

Foreword

Currently, there is significant research on the topic of making the world smart. Whether it is smart homes, phones, watches, other wearables, or smart cities, progress in attaining new and increased levels of “smart” is accelerating. Many communities are addressing various issues in attempting to achieve the goal of a smart world. The main communities include the Internet of Things, mobile computing, pervasive computing, wireless sensor networks, and cyber–physical systems. Each of these communities can contribute significantly to this goal, but increased progress will occur if, and when, the communities interact and leverage results from their respective communities. In fact, as greater sophistication of smart technologies is achieved, more and more technical challenges sit at the center of all these areas.

Let me briefly mention some of these central and fundamental challenges. How can we deal with trillions of devices? What will fundamentally change when there is an average of thousands of devices per person on the planet (vs only two or three today)? What IoT architectures will be necessary to manage and control each administrative domain (i.e., domains that own and control devices, apps, and services) and their interactions? With hundreds of millions of apps running, largely independently developed, how can we ensure safety and efficient performance? For example, one app from traffic control in a smart city may want to turn a traffic light red, but an emergency ...