Practical Aspects for the Integration of 5G Networks and IoT Applications in Smart Cities Environments

Table 1

Key Urban Challenges and IoT-supported Solutions.

Smart City Issue and Requirements	IoT support/solutions	Indoors wireless needed	Outdoors wireless needed	5G applicability	Bandwidth /; latency/; reliability
Infrastructure and real estate management.; Requirement: monitor status and occupancy of spaces, buildings, roads, bridges, tunnels, railroad crossings, and street signals.	Networked sensors (possibly including drones) to provide real-time and historical trending data allowing city agencies to provide enhanced visibility into the performance of resources, facilitating environmental and safety sensing, smart parking and smart parking meters, smart electric meters, and smart building functionality.	Y	Y	High	Low/; Low/; Medium
Livability.; Requirement: Quality of Life, expeditious access to services, efficient transportation, low delays, safety.	Networked sensors (possibly including drones) to facilitate smart multi-modal transportation, information-rich environments, location-based services, real-time connectivity to health-monitoring resources (e.g.,air quality).	Y	Y	High	Medium/; Medium/; Medium
Logistics.; Requirement: supplying city dwellers with fresh food, supplies, goods, and other materials.	Networked sensors (possibly including drones) to enable the streamlining of warehousing, transportation, and distribution of goods. Traffic management is a facet of such logistical support.	Y	Y	High	Medium/Medium/; High
Physical security.; Requirement: security in streets, parks, stations, tunnels, bridges, trains, buses, ferries.	Networked sensors (possibly including drones and gunshot detection systems) to support IP-based surveillance video, license plate reading, gun-shot detection, bio-hazard and radiological contamination monitoring, face recognition, and crowd monitoring and control.	Perhaps	Y	High	High/; Low/; High
Power and other city-supporting utilities.; Requirement: reliable flow of electric energy, gas, and water; optimized waste-management and sewer; safe storage of gasoline.	Smart Grid solutions and sensor-rich utility infrastructure	N	Y	High	Low/; Medium/; High
Traffic, transportation and mobility.; Requirement: optimized traffic flow, low congestion, low latency and high expediency, low noise, minimal waste of fuel and CO2 emissions, safety.	Networked sensors to support traffic flow, driverless vehicles including driverless bus transit, and multi-modal transportation systems. For driverless vehicles sensors will allow high-resolution mapping, telemetry data, traffic and hazard avoidance mechanisms	N	Y	High	Medium-to-High/; Low/; High
Electric and other utility manhole monitoring.; Requirement: Electric power manholes require monitoring to avoid and/or prevent dangerous situations	Cost-effective and reliable sensors are needed. Technology being investigated by Con Edison in New York city	N	Y	High	Low/; Medium/; High
Pollution monitoring.; Requirement: monitor emission of dioxins, vaporized mercury, nanoparticles, radiation from factories, incinerators, urban crematoria, especially if these sources are close to train tracks or other wind-turbulence elements (e.g., canyons)	Networked sensors throughout town (or within 10 km of a point source) to monitor toxic, health-impacting emission from point sources including factories, generation plants (if any) and crematoria (if any) [35–46]	N	Y	High	Medium/Medium/; High
Environmental Monitoring.; Requirements: monitor outdoor temperature, humidity and other environmental gases	Sensors to that can be placed in easy-to-deploy locations, e.g., atop existing Smart City light poles to continuously monitor temperature, humidity and other environmental gases	N	Y	High	Low/; Medium/Medium
Flood Abatement.; Requirement: Flood and storm drainage control	Distributed ruggedized sensors to monitor Flood and storm drainage to provide early warning and fault detection	N	Y	High	Low/; Medium/; High
Smart City Lighting.; Requirement: Conversion to LED lighting and ensuing control via IoT for weather conditions, phases of the moon, seasons, traffic occupancy, and so on	Cities spend large amounts of money yearly for street lighting (usually 1000 street lights per 10,000 inhabitants, and $125 per year per light for 4662 hours of usage yearly and system amortization.) LED lighting requires 1/ the amount of power for the same amount of luminance. Payback for conversion is now around 5-6 years. Sensors are needed for IoT-directed light management for weather conditions, phases of the moon, seasons, traffic occupancy, and so on	N	Y	High	Medium/; Medium/; Medium