Smart Cities and Homes

Key Enabling Technologies

Petros Nicopolitidis, Mohammad S Obaidat

• Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780128034545
• eBook ISBN: 9780128034637
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Computer Networking
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Smart Cities and Homes: Key Enabling Technologies explores the fundamental principles and concepts of the key enabling technologies for smart cities and homes, disseminating the latest research and development efforts in the field through the use of numerous case studies and examples. Smart cities use digital technologies embedded across all their functions to enhance the wellbeing of citizens. Cities that utilize these technologies report enhancements in power efficiency, water use, traffic congestion, environmental protection, pollution reduction, senior citizens care, public safety and security, literacy rates, and more. This book brings together the most important breakthroughs and advances in a coherent fashion, highlighting the interconnections between the works in different areas of computing, exploring both new and emerging computer networking systems and other computing technologies, such as wireless sensor networks, vehicle ad hoc networks, smart girds, cloud computing, and data analytics and their roles in creating environmentally friendly, secure, and prosperous cities and homes. Intended for researchers and practitioners, the book discusses the pervasive and cooperative computing technologies that will perform a central role for handling the challenges of urbanization and demographic change. - Includes case studies and contributions from prominent researchers and practitioners from around the globe - Explores the latest methodologies, theories, tools, applications, trends, challenges, and strategies needed to build smart cities and homes from the bottom up - Provides a pedagogy that includes PowerPoint slides, key terms, and a comprehensive bibliography

Chapter 1

Introduction and overview of key enabling technologies for smart cities and homes

T. Guelzim^*

M.S. Obaidat^†

B. Sadoun^**
* Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, Monmouth University, West Long Branch, NJ, United States
^† Department of Computer and Information, Fordham University, Bronx, NY, United States
^** Department of Surveying & Geomatics Engineering, Al-Balqa’ Applied University, Salt, Jordan

Abstract

In the past three decades, the Internet has undergone major evolutions. It started as a content sharing platform with early websites, portals, and search engines. Information on the Internet became richer and more diverse, especially with the increase of users worldwide; the Internet is no longer connecting information but also connecting people. Social networks emerged in addition to other services such as voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and video chat that empowered the social web. This shift transformed the end user from a consumer of information to a major contributor and producer of data. This trend has taken on an exponential slope with the advent of smartphones and Internet of Things (IoT) systems. In addition to data, smartphone accelerated a shift in communications as well. A new communication mode has enabled information access anytime and anywhere where end users need to interact with their environment for basic daily tasks. For instance, in major metropolitan cities, calling a taxi service is now done at the push of a button using the mobile device through application services such as Uber. Having connected information with users at early stages and then users with other users through social web, the Internet is evolving to connect objects, homes, cities, and just about everything that is connectable and can benefit from being connected. This leads to an intelligent and context-aware platform that enables all kinds of smart services. In this chapter, we discuss this new trend of connected objects in the context of smart homes and cities, and their challenges, as well as perform a survey of related key enabling technologies.

Keywords

smart homes

smart cities

ICT

smart governance

smart economy

smart mobility

IoT

1. Introduction

Recent statistics show that 50% of the world’s population is now living in or around cities. These cities are responsible for three-fourths of the world’s energy consumption and green house emission. By 2050 the world’s population will grow by another 30% and the number of citizens living around cities will jump to 70% [1–25]. With this evolution in mind, it is no doubt that the current city services and their governance will fail to deliver adequate added value to citizens. City planners and urban architects have been looking into tackling this issue by setting a vision for the city of the future under the concept of smart city. The adoption of these new concepts requires the provisioning of a wide range of services in a dynamic and effective manner. The solution is to benefit from the current boom in networked information technologies [3]. For smart cities many of the current technology trends contribute to its expansion such as Internet of Things (IoT), public Wi-Fi, ubiquitous cellular coverage, 4G and 5G networks, and smartphones. IoT and smartphone are thought to reduce the digital divide for citizens and smart cities. Being ubiquitous and democratized, these two enabling technologies will allow services accessed by all. In the next 10 years, smart cities will hold many investments. It is estimated that roughly $100 billion will be required in order to develop supporting technologies for advancing smart cities. By 2020, most of these technologies will be deployed across the globe. In parallel to smart cities, a complementary trend is also evolving, which is smart home concept. Smart homes rely on information and communications technology (ICT) as well in order to take the home and living experience to the next level. Homes are becoming connected to the Internet and digital services through smart devices that offer services ranging from simple utility information such as weather forecast to intelligent algorithms to adapt and optimize energy consumption by the home.

As the worldwide life expectancy, especially in developed countries and newly industrialized counties, is increasing, the percentage of elderly citizens is increasing at an alarming rate and most projections suggest that this increase worldwide will reach about 10 million in the coming decade or so. Senior citizens usually live in care centers, hospitals, or their own homes with some relative supervision/care. Smart homes and cities can be used efficiently and economically in order to accommodate the needs of this population in a cost-effective manner [1].

Interest in Smart Homes and Cities has increased in recent years due to the following [1]:

1. impressive economic development in populous countries such as China, India, and Brazil (China and India make for 40% of the World Population);

2. increased use of ICT devices and technology by individuals and organizations worldwide;

3. greater interest in environment protection and in reducing CO₂ emission; Green Economy;

4. noticeable rise in the number of elderly/senior citizens over 65 years old in many countries, especially in Japan, Europe, and even China, who need smart homes and smart cities to make their life comfortable, and healthy at affordable cost;

5. rapid increase of the population of big cities.

2. Trends in smart cities and homes

2.1. Smart cities

There are major characteristics that make a city “smart.” They can be summarized as follows [4]:

• immersive city services through the use of real-time data sensing;

• knowledge engineering that enables the aggregation and parsing o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• Dedications
• List of Contributors
• About the Editors
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1: Introduction and overview of key enabling technologies for smart cities and homes
• Chapter 2: Wireless sensor networks applications to smart homes and cities
• Chapter 3: Software defined things: a green network management for future smart city architectures
• Chapter 4: Nomadic service discovery in smart cities
• Chapter 5: A survey on enabling wireless local area network technologies for smart cities
• Chapter 6: LTE and 5G systems
• Chapter 7: Cars as a main ICT resource of smart cities
• Chapter 8: From vehicular networks to vehicular clouds in smart cities
• Chapter 9: Smart home cybersecurity considering the integration of renewable energy
• Chapter 10: Smart home scheduling and cybersecurity: fundamentals
• Chapter 11: Advanced optical network architecture for the next generation internet access
• Chapter 12: Cloud computing systems for smart cities and homes
• Chapter 13: Design and management of vehicle-sharing systems: a survey of algorithmic approaches
• Chapter 14: Smart transportation systems (STSs) in critical conditions
• Chapter 15: Optimization classification and techniques of WSNs in smart grid
• Chapter 16: Docit: an integrated system for risk-averse multimodal journey advising
• Chapter 17: Smart restaurants: survey on customer demand and sales forecasting
• Author Index
• Subject Index