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Everything You Wanted to Know About Smart Cities

Article · July 2016

DOI: 10.1109/MCE.2016.2556879

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 Everything You wanted to Know about Smart Cities

Saraju P. Mohanty Uma Choppali Elias Kougianos

Dept. of Computer Science & Dept. of Math and Science Dept. of Engineering
Engineering Brookhaven College Technology
University of North Texas Email: [email protected] University of North Texas
Denton, TX 76203. Denton, TX 76203.
Email: [email protected] Email:
[email protected]

This article is a single source introduction to the emerging concept of smart cities. It can be used for
familiarizing researchers to the vast scope of research possible in this application domain. The smart city is
primarily a concept and there is still not a clear and consistent definition of among practitioners and
academia. In a simplistic explanation, a smart city is a place where traditional networks and services are
made more flexible, efficient, and sustainable with the use of information, digital and telecommunication
technologies, to improve its operations for the benefit of its inhabitants. Smart cities are greener, safer,
faster and friendlier. The different components of a smart city include smart infrastructure, smart
transportation, smart energy, smart healthcare, and smart technology. These components are what makes
the cities smart and efficient. Information and communication technology (ICT) are enabling keys for
transforming traditional cities to smart cities. The two closely related emerging technology frameworks
Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data (BD) make smart cities efficient and responsive. The technology has
matured reasonably to allow smart cities to emerge. However, there is much need in terms of physical
infrastructure, renewable energy, ICT, and IoT, and BD to make the majority of cities worldwide smart.

1. Smart City: What is It and Why is it Needed?

What is smart city and why are many people taking about it? In the last several years there has been
explosive growth of information and communication technologies (ICTs) due to advancement of hardware
and software designs. The use of ICT in cities in various forms for different city activities has led to the
increased effectiveness of city operations and these cities have been labeled using many terms such as
“cyberville”, “digital city”, “electronic city”, “flexicity”, “information city”, “telicity”, “wired city”, and
“smart city”. Smart city is the largest abstraction among the labels used as it encompasses other labels used
for cities. The smart city is a concept and there is still not a clear and consistent definition of the concept
among academia and practitioners. In a simplistic explanation, a smart city is a place where traditional
networks and services are made more flexible, efficient, and sustainable with the use of information, digital
and telecommunication technologies, to improve its operations for the benefit of its inhabitants. In other
words, in a smart city, the digital technologies translate into better public services for inhabitants, and for
better use of resources while impacting the environment less. One of the formal definitions of the smart
city is the following: A city “connecting the physical infrastructure, the information-technology
infrastructure, the social infrastructure, and the business infrastructure to leverage the collective intelligence
of the city”. Another formal and comprehensive definition is the following: “A smart sustainable city is an
innovative city that uses information and communication technologies (ICTs) and other means to improve
quality of life, efficiency of urban operations and services, and competitiveness, while ensuring that it meets
the needs of present and future generations with respect to economic, social and environmental aspects”. A
broad overview of various components needed in a smart city is depicted in Fig. 1. Any combination of
various smart components can make cities smart. A city need not have all the components to be labeled as
smart. The number of smart components depends on the cost and available technology.

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 FIGURE 1. A Broad Overview of Smart City Components.

World population has increased significantly in the last decades and so has the expectation of living
standards. It is predicted that around 70% of the world population will live in urban areas by the year 2050.
At present cities consume 75% of the world’s resources and energy which leads to the generation of 80%
of greenhouse gases. Thus, in the next few decades there can be severe negative impact on the environment.
This makes the concept of smart cities a necessity. The creation of smart cities is a natural strategy to
mitigate the problems emerging by rapid urbanization and urban population growth. Smart cities, in spite
of the costs associated, once implemented can reduce energy consumption, water consumption, carbon
emissions, transportion requirements, and city waste.

Smart cities around the globe are quite diverse in terms of their characteristics, requirements, and
components. In general, standards established by organizations such as the International Organization for
Standardization (ISO), provide globally understood specifications to drive growth while ensuring quality,
efficiency, and safety. Standards can play an important role in the development and construction of the
smart city. Standards can also provide requirements for monitoring the technical and functional
performance of the smart cities. Standards can also help tackle climate change, address security and
transportation issues, while ensuring the quality of water services. Standards take into account various
factors such as business practices and resource management, while helping to monitor the smart city’s
performance and thus reduce its environmental impact. IEEE has been developing standards for smart cities
for its different components including smart grids, IoT, eHealth, and intelligent transportation systems
(ITS). A specific example of such a standard is ISO 37120 which defines 100 city performance indicators
which include 46 core and 54 supporting indicators. Some selected indicators are the following: economy,
education, energy, and environment, which can be used by city civic bodies to benchmark their service
performance, learn best practices from other cities as well as compare their city against other cities.

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2. Smart Cities: Components and Characteristics

Components and characteristics of the smart city are summarized in Fig. 2. There are many components of
a smart city and 8 different components have been presented in the figure. The components of a smart cities
include the following: smart infrastructure, smart buildings, smart transportation, smart energy, smart
healthcare, smart technology, smart governance, smart education, and smart citizens. A brief discussion of
these components will be presented in the subsequent sections. Different smart cities have different levels
of these smart components, depending on their focus.

FIGURE 2. Components and Characteristics of Smart Cities.

The various attributes of smart cities include sustainability, quality of life (QoL), urbanization, and
smartness. The sustainability of a smart city is related to city infrastructure and governance, energy and
climate change, pollution and waste, and social issues, economics and health. The quality of life (QoL) can
be measured in terms of the emotional and financial well-being of the citizens. The urbanization aspects of
the smart city include multiple aspects and indicators, such as technology, infrastructure, governance, and
economics. The smartness of a smart city is conceptualized as the ambition to improve economic, social
and environmental standards of the city and its inhabitants. Various commonly quoted aspects of city
smartness include smart economy, smart people, smart governance, smart mobility, and smart living.

There are four core themes for a smart city, namely society, economy, environment, and
governance. The society theme of a smart city signifies that the city is for its inhabitants or the citizens. The
economy theme of a smarty city signifies that the city is able to thrive with continuous job growth and
economic growth. The environment theme of a smart city indicates that the city will be able to sustain its

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function and remain in operation for current and future generations. The governance theme of a smart city
suggests that the city is robust in its ability to administer policies and combining together the other elements.

The infrastructure of the smart city includes physical, information and communication technology (ICT),
and services. The physical infrastructure is the real physical or structural entity of the smart city including
buildings, roads, railway tracks, power supply lines, and water supply system. The physical infrastructure
is typically the non-smart component of the smart cities. The ICT infrastructure is the core smart component
of the smart city which glues together all the other components in essentially acting as the nerve center of
the smart city. Service infrastructure is based on physical infrastructure and may have some ICT
components. Examples of service components include mass rapid transit system and smart grids. The
number of city facilities required as a function of city population can be calculated as follows:

𝑅𝑝 1 𝑌𝑒𝑎𝑟 1 𝐻𝑜𝑢𝑟 1 𝐷𝑎𝑦

𝑁𝑓 = 𝑁𝑝 ( )( )( )( )
𝑌𝑒𝑎𝑟 𝐷 𝐷𝑎𝑦𝑠 𝑁𝑐 𝑃𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝐻 𝐻𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠

where Nf is the number of facilities, Np is the city population in millions, Rp is the rate per person use in
year/week, D is days per year, Nc is the customers per hours, and H is the hours per day.

3. Smart Infrastructure and Building

In a classic sense, the infrastructure of a city is any physical component of the city such as roads, buildings,
and bridges that make the city and its inhabitants operate. However, in the context of smart cities, anything
physical, electrical, and digital that is the backbone of the smart city can be considered as its infrastructure.
There are many examples and a few are: rapid transit system, waste management system, road network,
railway network, communication system, traffic light system, street light system, office space, water supply
system, gas supply system, power supply system, firefighting system, hospital system, bridges, apartment
homes, hotels, digital library, law enforcement, economy system, etc. The smart infrastructure concept is
presented in Fig. 3. The backend of the smart infrastructure is the ICT infrastructure which make the
physical infrastructure “smart”. The ICT infrastructure is fundamental to the construction of smart cities
and depends on factors related to its availability and performance. The ICT infrastructure includes
communication infrastructure such as fiber optics, Wi-Fi networks, wireless hotspots as well as service-
oriented information systems. Smart infrastructure is more efficient, safe, secure, and fault-tolerant as
compared to classic infrastructure. The smart infrastructure may have physical infrastructure, sensors,
firmware, software, and middleware as its overall components. The “middleware” which is a specific type
of software typically plays a crucial role in automation and the quick response of smart infrastructure.
Middleware accumulates data and combines them into a common platform for analytics and reporting. The
middleware in the process can perform web-based dashboard displays for a visual snapshot of the
infrastructure. When experiencing high energy usage, abnormal maintenance costs, and many normal and
abnormal situations, the prompt attention of the operation staff is requested. The middleware provides the
executives in charge or operation staff numerous information including carbon footprint management and
sustainability as well as the big picture of the smart city infrastructure, no matter how many infrastructures,
buildings or geographic locations are involved as a whole. The information of the smart infrastructure
through the middleware and ICT is available quickly and can be accessed anywhere by the operation staff
and management for better decisions that have an immediate impact on the smart city operations. A specific
example of smart infrastructure is a smart power grid or, as it simplistically called, a smart grid. A smart
grid consists of various energy sources (renewable or conventional), smart meters, operational control
mechanisms, load balancing mechanisms, and fault-tolerant mechanisms for efficient and reliable power
delivery to the end user from the various energy sources.

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 FIGURE 3. Smart Infrastructure Depictions.

Smart buildings can be considered as part of the smart infrastructure or they can be considered as
independent components of smart cities. A smart building can have different hardware, software, sensors,
and smart appliances, for different automated operations including data network, voice-over-IP (VoIP),
video distribution, video surveillance, access control, power management, and lighting control. Smart
buildings are different from green buildings. Green buildings are sustainable structures with high energy
efficiency, water efficiency, and indoor environmental control with an objective of reducing their carbon
footprint and provide optimal energy performance. Smart buildings are a much larger concept than green
buildings. Smart buildings can easily connect to other buildings, people and technology, the global
environment, and smart power grids. Smart buildings effectively use the knowledge that is available outside
their walls and windows. For example, the smart grid can be used by smart buildings. In this scenario, the
smart building can easily adapt to its energy demand as well as that of the grid to have effective and low-
cost power utilization. Smart buildings can use dynamic electric rates in which a building is charged closer
to the actual cost of producing electricity at the instant it is used instead of the average cost over long time
periods. The use of the Internet of Things (IoT) provides integrated solutions that can process and analyze
large amounts of data that will maximize the operational and energy efficiency of smart buildings. The
advantages of the smart building include the following: data driven decision-making for high efficiency
and low-cost operations, higher resource utilization, reduced capital and operational cost structure, risk
identification and management, and sustainability.

4. Smart Transportation

Traditional transportation systems or facilities such as the railway network, road transport, airline transport,
and water transport have existed for a long time. In traditional transport each of these operates
independently even in a specific type of transport system, making global usage difficult. Smart
transportation also known as the Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) includes various types of

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communication and navigation systems in vehicles, between vehicles (e.g. car-to-car), and between vehicles
and fixed locations (e.g. car-to-infrastructure). ITS also covers the rail, water, and air transport systems,
and even their interactions. A broad illustration of the smart transportation is presented in Fig. 4. The smart
transportation system has made it possible to construct global airway hubs, intercity railway networks,
intelligent road networks, protected cycle routes, protected pedestrian paths, and integrated public transport
for safe, rapid, cost effective, and reliable transportation. The use of ICT and real-time data processing has
made the smart transportation system possible. The smart transportation system maximizes the utilization
of the vehicles used in the system, for example, the number of aircraft that an airline has or the number of
trains a railway network has. The smart transportation system allows passengers to easily select different
transportation options for low-cost, shortest distance, or fastest routes.

FIGURE 4. Illustration of Smart Transportation.

Specific examples of smart transportation technology including sensors in vehicles for collision avoidance
and anti-skidding to increase the safety of the system. A radio frequency identification (RFID) based toll
collection is an example of smart transport technology. In the RFID toll collection drivers need not stop at
a physical toll booth which typically takes time, blocks the traffic flow, as well as requires manpower for
toll collection. Automatic passport control at airports is an emerging technology deployed in smart
transportation. In automatic passport control, the passengers can use RFID based passports or electronic
passports for fast and reliable entry without the need for manual passport check. Another example of smart
transportation is the use of smart apps in mobile phones to hire taxis and even tracking the exact location
of the taxi and driver information in the same smart app.

5. Smart Energy

Energy is the property of an object or system which defines its ability to produce work. Energy can be in
various forms such as potential energy, kinetic energy, chemical energy, and thermal energy. Energy
sources are also quite diverse including solar, fossil fuels, gas, electricity, and battery. Energy can be neither
created nor destroyed but can be transformed from one form to another. In the last several years, in addition
to traditional energy forms, many other terms are associated with it including clean energy, green energy,
sustainable energy, renewable energy, and smart energy. The fear that energy sources available for human
consumption will be depleted has been driving these new energy related terms. Clean energy or green
energy suggests that the energy consumption has very minimal negative impact on the environment. For

6
example, solar energy or wind energy are forms of green energy sources. Sustainable energy and renewable
energy are energy sources which cannot be consumed within a few generations and can be regenerated
faster than they can be consumed. However, there can be some differences between sustainable energy and
renewable energy: sustainable energy sources are ones not created by human beings, whereas renewable
sources are created by human beings. One example of renewable energy is bio-gas which requires the
growth, consumption and disposal of organic materials to generate it. Another related term is zero energy
system or zero-energy buildings in which the energy consumed and energy generated are the same quantity
and hence the net consumption in these structures can be considered as zero. What is smart energy? Smart
energy is a much broader concept that any of the above such as traditional energy or clean energy, etc.
Smart is a concept which can be viewed as an “Internet of Energy” model. This model is based on one or
more principles of smart power generation, smart power grids, smart storage, and smart consumption. In
essence any traditional energy, clean energy, green energy, sustainable energy, and renewable energy along
with the information and communication technology (ICT) makes smart energy. The various different
components of smart energy are presented in Fig. 5(a). An illustration of a smart energy system is presented
in Fig. 5(b).

The smart energy system consists of the intelligent integration of decentralized sustainable energy sources,
efficient distribution, and optimized power consumption. Smart energy thus consists of three independent
building blocks that must be stitched together and effectively communicate with each other to form a unified
smart energy system. Low-carbon generation, also known as a green energy, photo-voltaic, solar thermal,
bio-gas, and wind energy can be an important part of a smart energy system. Efficient distribution in the
smart energy system is made possible by the use of smart infrastructure, smart grid, smart meters as well
as an appropriate level of utilization of the information and communication technology (ICT). The core of
a smart energy system is the information infrastructure which is responsible for collecting the energy
consumption information as well as sharing the provider rate information. The ICT can be used to control
the operations with appropriate level of energy consumption for smart appliances like dishwashers and
water heaters. ICT is also useful for transactions for plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) and heating,
ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC). ICT can be effectively used to purchase energy from various
diverse sources such as solar panels systems, wind turbine systems, and other possible energy sources.
Optimized consumption of the system is the 3rd key component of the smart energy system. The effective
use of efficient energy storage, smart metering, and effective energy management can be keys for
optimizing energy consumption in a smart energy system.

The backbone of a smart energy system is the smart energy grid or smart grid. In a formal definition, the
smart grid efficiently integrates the actions and behaviors of all connected users such as: (1) consumers, (2)
generators, and (3) users who are both consumers and generators. Smart grids ensure efficient, economical,
and sustainable energy systems with low levels of loss, higher quality supply, safety of system and users,
security of the supply, and faculty-tolerance of the system. Smart grid makes it possible to integrate diverse
sources of energy available, from fossil fuel based thermal energy to green photo-voltaic energy, and wind
energy. The future smart grids will be much more complex than the current generation. For example, a day
may come when every user also generates solar energy, bio-fuel energy, and even wind energy. A smart
grid will effectively synchronize this energy from diverse sources and provides electricity at specified
voltage and frequency without any fluctuations. The use of ICT plays a key role in a smart grid for the
following: (1) to support demand-response management of energy usage, (2) to dispatch power generation
for solar panels and wind turbines, (3) to facilitate location-independent, point-of-sale transactional services
for PEVs, and (4) enhancing consumer relationships. Smart energy metering is an important component of
the smart grid. The smart meter records consumption of electric energy in certain time intervals and
communicates that information to the utility for monitoring and billing. This facilitates accurate and reliable
reading of utilization without human reading or recording involvement. A smart battery or intelligent
battery which can be made from lithium ion or fuel cells can be effective for energy storage and efficient
delivery while having longer life.

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 FIGURE 5. Smart Energy and Smart Energy System.

6. Smart Healthcare

Due to the rapid growth of population, traditional healthcare is overwhelmed. There are not enough medical
practitioners to meet the need of the citizens. Many times hospitals make mistakes in handling infectious
diseases. In many occasions patients receive the wrong medication. In many remote places in the planet
receiving adequate healthcare is still a distant dream. Thus, with limited resources and ever increasing
demand, traditional healthcare needs to be intelligent, efficient, and sustainable; that is where smart
healthcare comes in. Smart healthcare can be conceptualized as a combination of various entities including

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traditional healthcare, smart biosensors, wearable devices, information and communication technology
(ICTs), and smart ambulance systems. The idea of smart healthcare is presented in Fig. 6. The various
components of smart healthcare include emerging on-body sensors, smart hospitals, and smart emergency
response. In smart hospitals, various mechanisms including ICTs, cloud computing, smart phone apps, and
advanced data analysis techniques, are used for their operation. The patient data can be made available in
real-time at various offices in a smart hospital or even various smart hospitals in different cities or the same
city. Medical technicians, nurses, and doctors can have access to the test data without loss of any time in
transferring the same information physically from one office to another. Similarly, different doctors can see
the information to make judgments on a patient’s condition. Thus real-time decisions on patient health
conditions and corresponding medication can be made possible.

FIGURE 6. The Idea of Smart Healthcare.

Telemedicine can be considered as a specific example of smart healthcare. Telemedicine can also be
considered as a subset of smart healthcare. Telemedicine uses information and communication technologies
(ICTs) for providing clinical health care at a long distance or in remote locations. This approach is
particularly useful for remote places in which healthcare services are not easily accessible; telemedicine
eliminates the distance barriers and improves access to medical services in such remote locations for distant
rural communities. Telemedicine is envisioned to provide critical care in emergency situations and can save
lives in such critical situations. Another example in which smart healthcare can have significant impact is
in assisted living for elders. In assisted living, seniors have as much independence as possible in their daily

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activities with minimal need of skilled nursing care. Smart healthcare can further add to the quality of life
in assisted living for seniors where a doctor, a nurse, a health report are easily available for them round the
clock.

7. Smart Technology

Smart technology is key for the design, implementation, and operation of smart cities. A variety of selected
technologies used in smart cities is presented in Fig. 7. A diverse variety of components including
infrastructure, buildings, physical structures, electrical infrastructure, electronics, communication
infrastructure, information technology infrastructure, and software, make the smart cities happen. A design
and operation challenge is how to have a good mix of the smart technologies so that the smart cities are not
over smart, rather sufficiently smart to be sustainable for years and years. Thus, it is important that the cost
of deployment of such smart technology is not a serious overhead for tax revenue of the citizens of the
smart cities. However, as science and technology make progress, smart technology can become cheaper
and smart cities may become an economically viable option.

FIGURE 7. Selected Possibilities of Smart Technologies.

Green or renewable energy resources such as solar power and wind power as discussed in a previous
Section are an example of smart technology which is key for smart cities. Green buildings and green
neighborhood development communities are also important for smart cities. Green buildings and hence the
corresponding communities using them are categorized by rigorous standards programs like Leadership in
Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) in the US and Building Research Establishment Environmental
Assessment Methodology (BREEAM) in the UK. The LEED program in the USA is a green building
certification program that identifies the best-in-class building strategies and practices. In order to achieve
the LEED certification, the building projects must satisfy prerequisites and earn scores to obtain different
levels of certification. For example, LEED v4 which is the newest version certification includes important
aspects like materials of the building, indoor environmental quality, smart grid, and water efficiency.
Similarly, BREEAM includes several categories for the assessment, including management, energy,
pollution, materials, waste, water usage, and healthcare.

A sustainable transport system is a key technology for smart cities. Sustainable and smart transport systems,
for example mass rapid transit systems (MRTS), can transport large numbers of people from one destination
to another. This can reduce traffic congestion and is helpful in reducing greenhouse emissions which have
a negative impact on global warming. Smart communication technology and ICT are important
technologies which include fiber optics to home, citywide Wi-Fi, near field communication (NFC), and
Bluetooth. Citywide Wi-Fi can make use of basic services such as calling a taxi easier. NFC can

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revolutionize the way credit cards are used; may be the day will come where we will have a cash less
society. Cyber physical systems (CPS) which are integrations of computation, networking, and physical
entities just like the internet of things (IoT) are a key to make physical entities smart. Social networks and
short-message services (SMS) have created communications mechanisms to efficiently avail utilities in
smart cities. A variety of state-of-the-art technologies can be used to make the cities smart. The above
discussed technologies like Wi-Fi, and NFC can be considered as part of this; however, there are many
other forms of smart technology. A specific example of state-of-the-art technology are smart meters that
can measure and record consumption of various utilities such as electricity, gas or water and communicate
that information for monitoring and billing to central facilities. Another state-of-the-art technology is
electronic cards or smart cards which contain a unique encrypted identifier that allows the owner to log in
to a range of services without setting up multiple accounts. A network of secure digital cameras can be an
effective solution for secure and copyrighted image or video communication in the IoT for use in smart
health care and smart transport.

8. Smart City Design: Challenges and Opportunities

The challenges for building smart cities are quite diverse and complex. A few include cost, efficiency,
sustainability, communication, safety, and security, as depicted in Fig. 8. These design challenges are
governed by various factors including the natural environment, government policy, social communities,
and economy. Cost is the most important factor of the smart city design. The cost includes design cost and
operation cost. The design cost is a onetime cost of the smart cities. Operation cost is that cost that is
required to maintain the smart city. Design cost needs to be small to make a smart city realization possible.
At the same time small operation cost will make it easier for cities to operate on a long run with minimal
burden on the city budget. Cost optimization over the complete system lifecycle can be a challenging
problem. Operation efficiency of the smart cities is an important challenge: higher efficiency can reduce
the operational cost and improve sustainability of the smart city. Cutting down carbon emissions and city
waste is needed to enhance sustainability and efficiency, and reduce operation cost. Smart cities need to
cope up with population growth while ensuring long-term sustainability with optimized operation cost.
Smart cities need to be resilient to disasters and failures. Disasters can come from nature. Failures can
originate for many reasons in the system such as a failure in ICT, or power failure. Natural disasters also
can lead to failure of various components of smart cities. Any smart city design needs to take these disasters
and failures into consideration so that the smart cities can quickly recover from such situations within
minimal time. The design and operation cost of the smart cities will be affected by these challenges. Smart
cities are made possible due to the effective use of many smart components including ICT, sensors, and IoT
and will need to process and store large volumes of data. Security of the information and infrastructure is
an important design challenge. Above all, public safety is a critical design challenge for smart cities as the
safety of the inhabitants is of paramount importance, which can also increase design and operation budgets.

9. The Internet of Things (IoT) in Smart Cities

The core of smart city implementation is the Internet of Things (IoT). In other words, the IoT is the technical
backbone of smart cities, as depicted in Fig. 9. The smart cities need to have three key features: intelligence,
interconnection, and instrumentation which the IoT can provide. It can be said that the use of the IoT can
make the smart cities feasible. The use of smart phones, smart meters, smart sensors, and radio-frequency
identification (RFID) in essence forms the IoT framework in the smart cities. The IoT framework consists
of various components including electronics, sensors, networks, firmware, and software. IoT is the network
of interconnected physical objects (called “things”) including computers, smart phones, sensors, actuators,
wearable devices, homes, buildings, structures, vehicles, and energy systems. The IoT ensures the
communication of many variety types of systems and applications for providing increasingly smart, reliable
and secure services. A large variety of sensors including RFID, IR, and GPS, connect the buildings,
infrastructure, transport, networks and utilities through ICT. Various tasks such as for information exchange

11
and communications, intelligent recognition, location determination, tracking, monitoring, pollution
control, and identity management can be performed by the IoT framework. A related term “Cyber Physical
System (CPS)” can be brought to the discussion in relation to the IoT. It is difficult to distinguish the two
terms CPS and IoT based on the available literature. CPS is a much larger entity than the IoT, in other
words, IoT is a network/communication subset of CPS. It is the implementation of IoT in a physical system
that leads to a CPS.

FIGURE 8. Selected Challenges in Smart City Design.

FIGURE 9. Internet of Things (IoT) in Smart Cities.

The IoT can be conceptualized as a configurable dynamic global network of networks. There are four main
components of the IoT: (1) The Thing, (2) The local area network (LAN), (3) The Internet, and (4) The
cloud. The Thing is a sensor, embedded computing device or embedded system which can transmit and

12
receive information over a network in order to control another device or interact with a user. An example
of the Thing is a temperature sensor, a microcontroller or a microprocessor-based device. On the other
hand, microwave, sprinkler, house, washing machine, or building do not come under the definition of
“Thing”. However, the IoT along with these physical entities such as buildings can make a Cyber Physical
System (CPS). The “Thing” may perform the following: (1) identification and storage of information, (2)
collect information, (3) understand commands, (4) transmit and receive messages, (5) sense, and (6) actuate.
The IoT can be used to build smart transportation, smart health care, and energy management in smart
cities.

10. Big Data in Smart Cities

In general, Big Data refers to a collection of large and complex data sets such that it is difficult to process
using regular database management tools or traditional data processing applications. The Internet of Things
(IoT), Big Data, and Smart cities are strongly inter-related as one needs the other two. The urban data which
are tagged in space and time and are generated in the smart cities can be Big Data. The Big Data in the
smart cities may be generated from a large collection of sensors, databases, emails, websites, and social
media as presented in Fig. 10. It is estimated that the proliferation of sensors, social networks, web pages,
image and video applications, and mobile devices are generating more than 2.5 quintillion bytes per day.
The challenges of Big Data are multifold including visualization, mining, analysis, capture, storage, search,
and sharing. Big Data requires new approaches of processing to enable enhanced decision making, insight
discovery and process optimization. Sophisticated data analysis mechanisms are necessary to search and
extract valuable patterns and knowledge from the Big Data of the IoT and smart cities.

FIGURE 10. Big Data in Smart Cities.

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Big Data has several important characteristics including the following: (1) complexity, (2) volume, (3)
variety, (4) variability, (5) veracity. At the abstraction level Big Data can be of 3 types such as enterprise
data, public data, and transactions as presented in Fig. 10. Examples of Big Data include atmospheric data,
call detail records, genomic data, e-commerce data, Internet search indexing, medical records, military
surveillance, photography archives, RFID data, sensor network data, social network data, video archives,
and web logs. However, storing a large amount of data may be cheap due to cheaper storage available at
present. The stored Big Data can then me mined to retrieved valuable information when needed. The Big
Data must be processed with advanced analytics and algorithmic methods and tools to retrieve the
meaningful information.

11. Conclusions

In a big picture, a city is a system of systems with a unique history and set in a specific social and
environmental context. For a city to prosper, all the key city systems need to work together, by utilizing all
of their resources to overcome the challenges the city faces. The “smartness” of a city describes its ability
to bring together all its resources, to effectively operate with maximum possible efficiency to fulfil the
purposes it has set itself. The smart city is a concept and a variety of definitions exist among academia and
practitioners. A smart city can have one or more smart components, including smart transportation, smart
grid, smart health care, and smart governance. The Internet of Things (IoT), cyber physical systems (CPS),
and Big Data are key technologies in the context of information and communication technology (ICT)
critical for the implementation of smart cities. Smart cities with minimal implementation and operation cost
are the keys for long-term sustainability. There are several smart cities with some form of smart components
operating at present at various parts of the globe. The need for smart cities is increasing day by day with
the increase of population as earthly resources are limited.

Read More about It

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About the Authors

Saraju P. Mohanty ([email protected]) is a Professor at the Department of Computer Science and

Engineering, University of North Texas, and the director of the NanoSystem Design Laboratory. He
obtained his Ph.D. in computer science and engineering from the University of South Florida in 2003, his
master’s degree in systems science and automation from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India,
in 1999. He is an inventor of 4 US patents. He is an author of 200 peer-reviewed journal and conference
publications and 3 books. His book titled "Nanoelectronic Mixed-Signal System Design" published by
McGraw-Hill in 2015 received 2016 PROSE (Professional & Scholarly Excellence) Award for best
Textbook in Physical Sciences & Mathematics from the Association of American Publishers (AAP). He
currently serves on the editorial board of 5 peer-reviewed international journals including IEEE
Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems (TCAD), IET Circuits,
Devices & Systems Journal, and IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine. He was a conference chair for
IEEE-CS Symposium on VLSI (ISVLSI) 2012 and 2014 and founder conference chair for IEEE
International Symposium on Nanoelectronic and Information Systems (IEEE-iNIS) in 2015. He is a Senior
Member of IEEE and ACM. More about him can be available from the following unbiased source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saraju_Mohanty.

Uma Choppali ([email protected]) is currently and adjunct faculty at the Dept. of Engineering
Technology at the University of North Texas, Denton. She obtained a Ph.D. in Material Science and
Engineering from University of North Texas in 2006. She has a Masters from Indian Institute of Technology
Bombay, India. She has authored 10 peer-reviewed publications.

Elias Kougianos ([email protected]) is currently an Associate Professor in Electrical Engineering Technology

at the University of North Texas. He obtained his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Lousiana State
University in 1997. He is author or co-author of over 100 peer-reviewed journal and conference
publications. He is a Senior Member of IEEE.

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