Smart Cities Research Articles

Ethics of smart cities and smart societies

Ethics of smart cities and smart societies

Is It Just Dumb Luck? The Challenge of Getting Access to Public Records Related to Smart City Technology

Many state and local governments have begun to rely heavily on Smart City technologies, including license plate readers, gun-shot detection equipment, wastewater monitoring tools, and more. But the public often has little oversight with regard to their purchase, installation, and use. We analyze public records laws and relevant case law to examine whether the laws provide access to records about, and produced by, Smart City technologies. Even in states that broadly define “public record,” officials regularly rely on exemptions—often citing law enforcement or privacy concerns—to deny access. Further, many Smart City technologies have not been addressed by the legislatures and courts, but legislation and litigation involving two technologies (police body-worn cameras and police dash cameras) have advanced—offering some optimism.

Designing the Urban Smart Futures Agenda for Lancaster, UK

The smart city concept has garnered a lot of interest; however, it often falls short when it comes to providing clarity on the benefits it can offer. Discussing smartness in the context of cities and their inhabitants requires the involvement of a wide range of stakeholders in decision-making. Similarly, the decision-making process is often unclear and can lack integrity. For this reason, in this research, we clarify this process and establish a smart agenda for urban areas. Specifically, this study focusses on the existing research in truly smart cities (where liveability is at the heart of decision-making). The research team implemented the assessment model (SMART) during a facilitated workshop under COVID-19 restrictions. Taking societal, environmental, health, economic, and governance liveability perspectives into account, the results yielded a set of recommendations for designing the smart urban agenda, which can support cities that aspire to become smart.

Miniaturized tri-band integrated microwave and millimeter-wave MIMO antenna loaded with metamaterial for 5G IoT applications

This study presents a revolutionary tri-band combined microwave (MW) and millimeter wave (MMW) multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) antenna. The antenna is built on a Rogers RT-5880 substrate with dimensions of 32 × 32 × 1.6 mm³. This integration increased the isolation from 18 dB to 27 dB in the MW band and 28 dB–40 dB in the MMW band. The effective bandwidths for the MW and MMW bands were initially 3.3–3.7 GHz, 5.45–9.2 GHz, and 24–28 GHz, respectively. The MTM increased these bandwidths to 2.6–4.1 GHz, 5.3–11.3 GHz for the MW band, and 22.5–29.3 GHz for the MMW band. In addition, the realized gain increased significantly, from 1.5 dBi, 3.5 dBi, and 6.5 dBi to 4.5 dBi, 6.1 dBi, and 11 dBi at 3.5 GHz, 6.9 GHz, and 28 GHz. The antenna's overall efficiency increased by 10–12 % across all operational bandwidths. The suggested antenna has excellent diversity performance, with an envelope correlation coefficient of less than 0.0002, a diversity gain greater than 9.998, and a channel capacity loss of less than 0.12 bits/s/Hz. The proposed antenna addresses the increasing demand for IoT devices by efficiently supporting both MW and MMW frequency bands, offering high performance in wireless communication and modern infrastructures. The proposed design not only improves connectivity and efficiency in IoT devices but also supports the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by contributing to the development of smart city infrastructure (SDG 11) and fostering innovation and sustainable industrial practices (SDG 9), thereby promoting sustainable development and industrial innovation.

Exploring the Differences and Similarities between Smart Cities and Sustainable Cities through an Integrative Review

This study adopts an integrative review approach to explore the differences and similarities between smart cities and sustainable cities. The research starts by performing two systematic literature reviews about both paradigms and, after that, employs a thematic analysis to identify key themes, definitions, and characteristics that differentiate and connect these two urban development concepts. The findings reveal more similarities than differences between the two paradigms. Despite this, some key differences are identified. Smart cities are characterized by their use of advanced information and communication technologies to enhance urban infrastructure, improve public services, and optimize resource management. In contrast, sustainable cities focus on environmental conservation, social equity, and economic viability to ensure long-term urban resilience and quality of life. This study is important because it clarifies both concepts and highlights the potential for integrating smart and sustainable city strategies to address contemporary urban challenges more holistically. The findings also suggest a convergence towards the concept of ‘smart sustainable cities’, which leverage technology to achieve sustainability goals. Finally, this study concludes by identifying research gaps and proposing a future research agenda to further understand and optimize the synergy between smart and sustainable urban development paradigms.

Assessment of Cybersecurity Risks in Digital Twin Deployments in Smart Cities

Digital Twin (DT) technology has become a cornerstone of modern smart city infrastructure, providing real-time insights and operational efficiencies by creating a virtual replica of physical systems such as traffic networks, energy grids, and public services. While these advancements enable optimized urban management and improved decision-making, they also present new cybersecurity challenges that can potentially jeopardize the safety and reliability of critical infrastructures. This study addresses the cybersecurity risks associated with Digital Twin deployments in smart cities, focusing on threats such as unauthorized access, data manipulation, and hijacking of the DT models, which could result in service disruptions and compromise public safety. The research employs a comprehensive risk assessment methodology based on the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, where potential risks are identified, evaluated, and prioritized according to their severity and likelihood of occurrence. To mitigate these risks, a multi-layered security framework was developed, incorporating encryption mechanisms, robust access control, and an Artificial Immune System (AIS)-based anomaly detection model. The framework was tested through a simulated case study on a smart transportation system within a smart city environment, demonstrating its effectiveness in preventing data tampering and detecting unauthorized access. The results indicate that the proposed security model reduced data manipulation incidents by 35%, decreased response times for threat detection by 25%, and improved overall system resilience by 40%. These findings underscore the critical need for proactive cybersecurity strategies in ensuring the secure and resilient deployment of Digital Twin technologies in smart cities. The study concludes by emphasizing the importance of continuous security monitoring and adaptive threat management to safeguard smart city ecosystems from evolving cyber threats

Literature Mapping on IoT Integration and Smart City: Bibliometric Analysis and Socio-Economic Impact

The integration of the Internet of Things (IoT) in smart cities has become a transformative force, revolutionizing urban development and management. This study provides an in-depth analysis of the socio-economic impacts of IoT integration in smart cities, examining its influence on economic growth, job creation, public service optimization, social inequality, privacy, security, and environmental sustainability. Through a comprehensive literature review and bibliometric analysis, we highlight the opportunities and challenges that IoT technologies present in the urban context. While IoT fosters economic growth and improves service efficiency, concerns related to data privacy, security, and the digital divide pose significant challenges. Additionally, IoT's role in promoting environmental sustainability is emphasized, as smart cities increasingly adopt technology to monitor resources and reduce carbon emissions. This study underscores the importance of addressing these socio-economic factors to ensure the equitable and sustainable development of smart cities, thereby maximizing the benefits of IoT technologies while mitigating potential risks.

Investigating the Effects of the Quadruple Helix on Civic Society Engagement in Smart City Innovation

This paper is focused on the Quadruple Helix (QH) impacts on civic engagement in urban innovations. The main research question addressed is whether there is evidence available in the public domain that use of quadruple helix has increased the involvement of members of civil society in decision-making in smart cities initiatives (SCIs). Due to its rising popularity as a practical innovation model, QH – where government, industry, academia and civil society collaborate to collectively address public problems - has received growing attention in smart cities research and policy making. But despite this, the actual effects of involving the fourth helix – members of civil society – remains an under-researched area. It has yet to be demonstrated what, in practice, SCIs operating under the banner of QH have accomplished, especially for improving the engagement of civil society (CS) members in decision-making about smart city (SC) innovations. A broadly based systematic review of the literature on QH in SCIs has been conducted to discover whether those featuring QH report that successful engagement of members of civil society has affected innovation outcomes. Results suggests that despite its heavy promotion, neither the practical significance of involving the fourth helix in decision-making in SCIs, nor the ‘benefits’ delivered from doing so, are currently unpacked in the literature. This is only partly due to the dearth of published evidence about these issues. The lack of reported effects of the quadruple helix on civic engagement in smart city initiatives is compounded by the inadequate research design adopted for such initiatives, especially by the insufficient attention given to reporting on their implementation or to evaluations of what they have achieved in practice.

An investigation on NGR failure in Indian smart cities while replacing the existing overhead lines by underground cables

Abstract Nowadays, Indian power distribution companies (PDCs) are implementing smart distribution networks. Older cities are becoming smarter as per the recent government’s policy. Existing overhead distribution lines are being replaced by underground cables as an essential criterion of a smart city. One of the main problems arising in this process is the overheating of the neutral grounding resistor (NGR) in 11 kV distribution systems, even in normal conditions. NGRs, placed inside the substations, are overloading the air conditioning and exhaust systems of the substation. Sometimes failure of the NGR occurs due to overheating. In this paper, a comprehensive investigation has been carried out to reach the roots of this problem. It is observed that long underground cables have a higher ground capacitance than overhead distribution lines. Due to the higher cable capacitance, the third harmonic current circulates through neutral, which overheats the NGR even in normal conditions. The situation becomes worse when the substation runs on diesel generators (DGs) in an isolated state under main grid failure, as a higher amount of third-harmonic current circulates depending on the type of winding and pitch factor of the DGs. Different solutions are proposed, and their advantages and disadvantages are analyzed. Finally, the rating of the NGR is modified, and louvers-cooling fan arrangement is preferred for the running substation.

Research status and development direction of smart heritage: a bibliometric review (1994-2024)

ABSTRACT Smart heritage, an emerging and sustainable paradigm, utilises technology to conserve and enhance cultural heritage. Despite integration into smart city development, full implementation remains unrealised. Consequently, this study aims to investigate the status and trends of smart heritage research, explore the development direction of smart heritage, bridge existing knowledge gaps, and guide its integration into smart city development. This study employs a bibliometric analysis method, supported by machine algorithms, to obtain scientific and quantifiable results. The study utilises the bibliometric analysis software CiteSpace 6.2R6 to analyze 981 articles from the Web of Science Core Collection, covering 1994 to 2024. We observe a notable increase in scholarly output over time, especially in smart cities and digital cultural strategies, where smart heritage has emerged as a research hotspot across various disciplines and domains. Smart heritage crosses three stages: digital technology application, technology integration, and multidisciplinary integration, showcasing diverse technological applications, service scenarios, and application domains. Moving forward, we must prioritize a comprehensive research agenda, including theoretical constructs, smart cultural infrastructure, robust policy, public engagement, and expanded application realms. Additionally, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration between international entities and driving technological innovation is vital for promoting the sustainable development of cultural heritage.

Between smart housing and home. EU-funded climate smart interventions in Swedish public housing

Smart housing and its consequences for tenants is still a largely absent field in smart city and housing research. Departing from the EU-funded project GrowSmarter, 2015–2019 and a renovation project of a 1960s housing complex in Stockholm, the article investigates tensions around retrofitting older apartment blocks to make them climate smart. The article presents the argument that top-down approaches of EU-funded climate-smart city interventions leave minimal space for different stakeholders to steer the process and limits the tenants’ role and influence. Researching the implementation of smart technology in housing renovations and how it ultimately effects tenants’ everyday lives, the article adds to previous knowledge of uneven development of climate smart solutions through bringing in the outcomes of housing renovation projects, and how ‘actual smart cities’ are played out within the housing sector. The article brings together research on climate urbanism, housing studies and smart cities with the purpose to understand the scalar politics of smart implementations and the effects on tenants.

Research on the Practical Path of Green Finance in the Low-carbon Transformation of Smart Cities: A Case Study of the Transformation and Development of European Smart Cities

This study aims to explore the practical path of green finance in promoting low-carbon transformation of smart cities by taking the transformation of smart cities in Europe as a case study. The successful experience of smart city transformation in Europe is deeply studied through case analysis, and the application of green finance and its impact mechanism on urban transformation are discussed. The study found that green finance plays an important role in the transformation of smart cities in Europe, which promotes the transformation of cities to lowcarbon and smart direction through the practice path of policy formulation, technological innovation and sustainable development planning. This study provides a reference for the low-carbon transformation of smart cities in other regions, and has certain theoretical and practical significance for promoting sustainable urban development.

Analisis Pengambilan Keputusan JAKI terhadap Peningkatan Pelayanan Publik di Provinsi DKI Jakarta

This research aims to explore the implementation of the intelligence phase in the development of the Jakarta Kini (JAKI) application as an integral part of the Jakarta Smart City initiative. The intelligence phase, described by Herbert Simon as a crucial stage in the decision-making process, involves identifying the problem, collecting relevant data, and deeply understanding the context. Using a descriptive qualitative method approach, this research aims to dig deeper into how Jakarta Smart City implements the intelligence phase to improve electronic-based public services through the JAKI platform. The results show that the effective implementation of the intelligence phase has contributed significantly to improved quality of public services provided, better responsiveness to community needs, and improved data-driven decision-making in the development of JAKI. The implications of these findings are highly relevant and provide valuable insights for other cities seeking to develop similar smart city initiatives. By integrating the intelligence phase in the decision-making process, it is expected to improve efficiency, service quality, and responsiveness to community needs in an evolving and changing urban context. As such, this research makes a substantial contribution to the understanding of the implementation of the intelligence phase in the context of the development of the Jakarta Kini (JAKI) application as part of the Jakarta Smart City initiative.

New Lightweight Cryptosystem for IoT in Smart City Environments

Internet of Things (IoT) devices, user interfaces (UI), software, as well as communication networks are all deployed within Smart Cities topology. The security approach designed for Internet of Things IoT should be able to prevent and detect both internal and external attacks. The problem in IoT network that not every linked node or device has an adequate amount of processing power. This means that data encryption and other related activities will be impossible and means that the security of any kind must be lightweight. A trustworthy security solution that stops illegal access to private data on the network is necessary for maintaining the privacy of information on the Internet of Things. Cryptographic processes need to be quicker and more compact without sacrificing security. The aim of this study is to reduce the execution time and power consumption of encryption processes without compromise the complexity of the encryption algorithm. This research presents a new lightweight cryptographic technique to protect various multimedia and real-time traffics across IoT network, by using two S-box in SubByte of encryption process, without affecting its performance. In this study, different audio samples will be used to test the new algorithm efficiency. Comparing the suggested method to the most advanced standard algorithm, it can reduce the cryptography process's execution time as well as energy consumption while maintaining the required security level. The outcomes demonstrate good performance in terms of power usage and delay. The new technique consumed a roughly 0.2 µJ for encryption process while the typical AES algorithm consumed 0.29 µJ, this mean the new algorithm achieved (33% power savings), while maintaining a good complexity level (security) within the process of encryption according to the results in tables I, II, and the comparison in table III. The novelty of this work can be showed by using dual XOR S-box technique which increased the complexity of SubByte process making it more secure without overload the processing performance, in addition to the reduction in encryption rounds which contribute to enhance the performance without compromise the security. Making it more suited for the Internet of Things (IoT) used in smart city environments.

Security Enhancement Scheduling Model for IoT‐Based Smart Cities Through Machine Learning Method

ABSTRACTThe Internet of Things (IoT) is rapidly evolving, and this has supported the adoption of a new computing paradigm that moves processing power to the network's edge. The job must be assigned to the computer nodes, where their associated data is available, to minimize overheads generated by data transmissions in the network, because the edge nodes have limited processing power and are vulnerable to security. Hence, the paper introduces a novel security‐enhanced scheduling model for IoT‐based smart cities utilizing machine learning techniques. Initially, nodes are initialized using the LHK‐Means algorithm. Subsequently, tasks, representing requests from multiple users to access IoT data, are scheduled. Anomaly detection tasks are then identified using an L2‐Norm‐based fuzzy model. Normal tasks are processed by the BN‐CNN model, which schedules data collection tasks through the initialized IoT device nodes. Comparative analysis with existing models illustrates the effectiveness of the proposed approach in terms of accuracy, precision, recall, sensitivity, specificity, and f‐measure.

Green Campus Transformation in Smart City Development: A Study on Low-Carbon and Energy-Saving Design for the Renovation of School Buildings

In the context of increasingly deteriorating global ecological conditions and rising carbon emissions from buildings, campus architecture, as the primary environment for youth learning and living, plays a crucial role in low-carbon energy-efficient design, and green environments. This paper takes the case of Yezhai Middle School in Qianshan, Anhui Province, to explore wind environment optimization and facade energy-saving strategies for mountainous campus buildings under existing building stock renovation. In the context of smart city development, integrating advanced technologies and sustainable practices into public infrastructure has become a key objective. Through wind environment simulations and facade energy retrofitting, this study reveals nonlinear increases in wind speed with building height and significant effects of ground roughness on wind speed variations. Adopting EPS panels and insulation layers in facade energy retrofitting reduces energy consumption for winter heating and summer cooling. The renovated facade effectively prevents cold air intrusion and reduces external heat gain, achieving approximately 24% energy savings. This research provides a scientific basis and practical experience for low-carbon energy retrofitting of other campus and public buildings, advancing the construction industry towards green and low-carbon development goals within the framework of smart city initiatives.

Kinodynamic Model-Based UAV Trajectory Optimization for Wireless Communication Support of Internet of Vehicles in Smart Cities

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are utilized for wireless communication support of Internet of Intelligent Vehicles (IoVs). Intelligent vehicles (IVs) need vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-everything (V2X) wireless communication for real-time perception knowledge exchange and dynamic environment modeling for safe autonomous driving and mission accomplishment. UAVs autonomously navigate through dense urban areas to provide aerial line-of-sight (LoS) communication links for IoVs. Real-time UAV trajectory design is required for minimum energy consumption and maximum channel performance. However, this is multidisciplinary research including (1) dynamic-aware kinematic (kinodynamic) planning by considering UAVs’ motion and nonholonomic constraints; (2) channel modeling and channel performance improvement in future wireless networks (i.e., beyond 5G and 6G) that are limited to beamforming to LoS links with the aid of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs); and (3) real-time obstacle-free crash avoidance 3D trajectory optimization in dense urban areas by modeling obstacles and LoS paths in convex programming. Modeling and solving this multilateral problem in real-time are computationally prohibitive unless extensive computational and overhead processing costs are imposed. To pave the path for computationally efficient yet feasible real-time trajectory optimization, this paper presents UAV kinodynamic modeling. Then, it proposes a convex trajectory optimization problem with the developed linear kinodynamic models. The optimality and smoothness of the trajectory optimization problem are improved by utilizing model predictive control and quadratic state feedback control. Simulation results are provided to validate the methodology.

Does government-driven infrastructure boost green innovation? Evidence of new infrastructure plan in China

The role of government-driven investment in improving environmental quality has long been an essential concern of environmental research. Using a spatial difference-in-differences model, this study investigates the influence of government-driven new infrastructure investment on green innovation. Based on a panel dataset of 276 Chinese cities from 2005 to 2019, we find a positive effect of high-speed rail (HSR) and smart city (SC) construction on green innovation. Compared with cities that are unconnected to the HSR network, those that are accessible by HSR experienced a 20.6 % increase in per capita green patents. In addition, being a SC planned by the government is associated with 14.8 % more green patents per capita than other cities. Moreover, government-promoted new infrastructure has significant spatial spillover effects on green innovation in adjacent cities. Regional sensitivity is found in promotional and spatial spillover effects. The findings of our study offer essential insights for developing effective policies for advancing infrastructure modernization and environmental protection simultaneously.

A systematic review of fault tolerance techniques for smart city applications

Smart City Applications encompass many characteristics that increase the risk of failures, such as context-awareness, adaptiveness, distribution and heterogeneity. Therefore, it is important to implement fault-tolerant mechanisms to produce more reliable applications. This study presents a systematic literature review of fault tolerance techniques that have been proposed for, or applied to Smart City Applications. It also characterizes faults, errors and failures that may occur in these systems. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first review that provides a broad picture of the research area and points out research limitations and directions. We selected 43 primary studies and performed initial classifications (e.g., based on type of research, type of contribution, application domains and subdomains, and type of system architecture). We further classified and discussed the selected studies based on types of fault tolerance techniques and types of faults and failures. System Reconfiguration, Diversity, and Retry are classical techniques that have been investigated in this domain. Many fault and failure types have also been addressed. While those well-known techniques have been explored for introducing fault tolerance capabilities into Smart City Applications, others have been overlooked. Moreover, evidence on the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed fault tolerance solutions is still very limited.Editor’s note: Open Science material was validated by the Journal of Systems and Software Open Science Board.

ҚАЗАҚСТАН РЕСПУБЛИКАСЫНЫҢ УРБАНИЗАЦИЯ ПРОЦЕСІНІҢ ЖӘНЕ УРБАНИЗАЦИЯЛАНҒАН АУМАҚТАРДЫҢ ИННОВАЦИЯЛЫҚ ДАМУЫНЫҢ ӨЗАРА ТӘУЕЛДІЛІГІН ТАЛДАУ

The article examines the relevance of the management of innovative development of cities and urban agglomerations, as evidenced by the widespread adoption in this area of both international strategic documents and at the national level. To achieve the goal of the strategy "Kazakhstan-2050" to enter the country into the top 30 economically most developed countries of the world by 2050, it is necessary to diversify the country's economy, one of the factors of which is the spatial development of the country, where urbanized territories play a key role. The issues of sustainable urban development and achieving a high level of urbanization are included in the strategic policy documents and plans of the Government of the country. Thus, these priorities are reflected in the Strategic Development Plan of Kazakhstan until 2025, where the main focus of the reform "Strong Regions and Urbanization" is aimed at the development of medium and small cities, the implementation of Smart City projects, the digitalization of urban infrastructure and an increase in the proportion of urban residents to 60% by 2025. This article examines the fundamental works of world regional science, classical and neoclassical urban concepts. During the dissertation work, monographs, scientific papers, and research by domestic and foreign scientists on the specifics of urbanization processes, the impact of urbanization on the socio-economic development of the country, urbanization policy, and improving the management processes of innovative development of cities and urban agglomerations were studied. The achievement of this goal has determined the need to systematize theoretical approaches to determining the essential characteristics of the urbanization process, to reveal the content of the concept of "urbanized territories"; to explore theoretical concepts of patterns and principles of the formation of cities and the urban environment; The practical significance of the study is to develop practical recommendations for the management of innovative development of urbanized territories in Kazakhstan. The results of the study will analyze the problems of the urbanization process in Kazakhstan, identify and analyze the situation concerning the ratio of urbanization and innovative development, develop a mechanism for managing the innovative development of urbanized territories, focused on using the innovative potential of cities and urban agglomerations in areas that provide the greatest return;