Internet Of Things Assignment: Future Urbanization Through Smart Cities

Question

Task:Choose one of the topics given below and submit a research project, which should not exceed 4000 words. The help file is available in the Student Resources Folder on Interact2.

Topics to select from but not limited to:

• IoT Smart City
• IoT Mining Industry
• IoT Health Care
• IoT in Farming
• IoT for Independent Living of the Older Generation
• IoT for Reducing Food Wastage in Australia
• IoT in Finance Industry and Security Challenges
• Business Intelligence in IoT
• Future of the Fog Domain
• IoT and Data Analytics
• IoT in Intelligent Transport Systems
• Big Data challenges in IoT and Cloud
• Machine Learning for Intelligent Decision Making in IoT
• Common Currency for IoT
• Utilising block chain technology in IoT

If you think of any other related topics please talk to your lecturer before deciding.

Introduce the Problem or Challenges

• Write the Introduction to the problem and domain.
• Structure of the report including which section covers what.

Answer

Introduction:The constantly increasing proportions of urbanization have been explicitly observed in recent times and estimates suggest that almost 70% of the global population amounting to more than 6 billion people would be residing in urban areas or nearby locations by the year 2050 (Choudhary, Sathe & Kachare, 2017).

The substantial rise in population density in urban locations has also led to an increase in the demands for sophisticated services and infrastructure needed for addressing the requirements of residents. Therefore, the preferences for smart cities could be conveniently validated in this case owing to the credible implications for social, environmental and economic security alongside the use of information and communication technologies for improving awareness, competency and interactivity of the services of the city and its monitoring (Choudhary, Sathe & Kachare, 2017).

The prospects for smart cities are being driven profoundly by the expanding scope of Internet of Things (IoT) which can be considered as an integration of available internet accessibility into a wide network of interconnected devices and objects that are not only capable of gathering information from the surrounding environment through sensing alongside engaging in interactions with the physical world but also comply with the present internet standards for provision of services for analytics, applications and information transfer. In this section, the problem associated with using Internet of Things (IoT) for development of smart cities with respect to the recent advancements as well as the emerging challenges would be discussed.

Domain: IoT for smart cities:Prior to discussion on the problems and challenges encountered in the specific concerned domain, it is essential to obtain a conceptual understanding of Internet of Things and its application in the case of developing new smart cities. The general concept that is associated with the IoT is the ubiquitous presence of different objects such as sensors, mobile phones, actuators and Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) tags around us. With their individual addressing schemes, these devices would be able to coordinate with each other for accomplishing common goals (Choudhary, Sathe & Kachare, 2017, p 1).

The empowerment of IoT through adapting different facilitating devices such as actuator nodes and embedded sensors for converting the available fixed and mobile networking infrastructures into a fully integrated network for the future. Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) that form an integral aspect of sensing-actuation support in IoT could be integrated effectively into urban infrastructure thereby providing a digital blueprint of the city. The information that is garnered through WSNs could be collated across different applications and platforms that lead to the development of a common operating picture (COP) of the city (Choudhary, Sathe & Kachare, 2017, p 1).

The concern for addressing the problems identified in use of IoT for smart cities could be profoundly observed from the benefits of IoT for smart cities that cannot be undermined in any scenario. The applications of IoT facilitate prolific assistance for individuals, businesses and societies to explore new opportunities for accessing substantial volumes of data alongside introducing new applications and services that can contribute to reduction in levels of power consumption, improvement in efficiency of the society and creation of a cleaner environment (Ahlgren, Hidell & Ngai, 2016, p 2).

One of the promising examples of the application of IoT in moderation of urban infrastructure could be identified in the utilization of mobile phones and smart meters for regulating energy consumption that is responsible for higher energy efficiency as well as individual control. Furthermore, smart energy solutions and smart grids could be leveraged by people for measuring, monitoring, controlling and influencing personal energy consumption alongside capitalizing on abilities for independent production of energy (Ahlgren, Hidell & Ngai, 2016, p 2).

Problem or Challenges:The primary challenges that are identified in the adoption of IoT for smart cities are vested in open research issues. The discussion on these challenges would be explicitly productive for facilitating research direction to new ventures in this domain. The first aspect that should be discussed in the case of implementing IoT for smart cities is vested in security, privacy and trust. Since smart cities are associated with provision of Internet connectivity to a wide assortment of devices, security could be accounted as a formidable issue as estimates have suggested that 70% of IoT devices in smart cities are vulnerable to attacks owing to factors such as insufficient software safeguards, inadequate protocols for encrypted communication and improper standards for authorization. Therefore, it is essential to address specific issues in the establishment of an IoT-based smart city which include active and competent decentralized trust management system, privacy-aware communication of user data, string privacy measures for ensuring the trust and consent of users and utilization of risk assessment frameworks for identifying existing as well as threats of emergent attacks on the basis of vulnerabilities.

Interoperability is also a formidable challenge in establishing an IoT-based smart city which can be defined as the capability of different devices and networks to engage in communication for exchanging crucial information. The consideration of interoperability between two devices from different domains as a major roadblock for accomplishing IoT success by the World Economic Forum further strengthens the necessity for addressing this issue urgently.

The primary cause for issues with interoperability could be identified in the lack of universal standards. The possible measures that could be implemented for addressing the issues with interoperability is to recognize the issues at different levels such as platform, network, device or application and utilization of a holistic and competent approach for facilitating connectivity to numerous IoT devices. In the case the example of standardizing FIWARE and oneM2M could be presented as a prolific initiative for addressing interoperability issues arising in context of the collaboration between the largest standardization bodies of the world such as OMA, ETSI and 3GPP.

The operation of IoT devices is profoundly associated with the requirement for a continuous source of energy thereby leading to the challenge of cost and battery life. The possible approach that can be implemented in this case would be the implementation of devices that provide the feature of low power consumption at lower costs (Mehmood et al., 2017, p 21).

The advances in this context could be realized only through progress in the domain of micro-electronics and wireless communication. Continuing with the problems that might arise in establishment of IoT-based smart cities, the other noticeable issues include Big Data Analytics and connectivity in IoT (Mehmood et al., 2017, p 22).

The prominent challenges that can be observed in this case include references to the requirements for respecting the privacy of users during data analysis, provision of infrastructure for collection, storage and analysis of a considerable amount of data, provision of connectivity to high-mobility devices and ensuring connectivity among the extensively deployed devices even in the lack of communication networks (Mehmood et al., 2017, p 23).

Structure of the report: The following report would comprise of four different sections that are initiated with the executive summary for the report. The executive summary would include definition of the purpose and scope of the report alongside the technologies that would be discussed in the report as well as the recommendations based on information discussed in the report.

The introduction section would provide an initial benchmark from where the report would progress. The significant section in the report is the Literature review that briefly explains the issues that might arise in implementation of IoT for smart city development such as interoperability, security, connectivity, low cost and low power consumption as well as big data analytics. The discussion in the literature review would also be used to outline specific solutions to the presented problems. Finally, the report would present a discussion on the research findings leading to a relevant conclusion for the report.

ReferencesAhlgren, B., Hidell, M., & Ngai, E. C. H. (2016). Internet-of-Things for Smart Cities: Standards and Opportunities.

Choudhary, S. K., Sathe, R. B., & Kachare, A. E. (2017). Smart Cities Based on Internet of Things (IoT)-A Review. International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology, 48(8), 434-439.

Mehmood, Y., Ahmad, F., Yaqoob, I., Adnane, A., Imran, M., & Guizani, S. (2017). Internet-of-things-based smart cities: Recent advances and challenges. IEEE Communications Magazine, 55(9), 16-24.