Smart and Connected Communities

April 13, 2017

The initiative of smart cities is evolving into a new concept called smart and connected communities (SCC), which focus on the past, present, and future of areas that are not big cities but can still benefit from IoT advances.

The Internet of Things has the power to be integrated into all types of communities to provide access to IoT tech that can enhance sustainability and quality of life, improved health and safety, and economic prosperity for people who live in the area.

In “Internet of Things and Big Data Analytics for Smart and Connected Communities” from IEEE XploreⓇ, the authors explain, “SCC are envisioned to address synergistically the needs of remembering the past (preservation and revitalization), the needs of living in the present (livability), and the needs of planning for the future (sustainability).”

In order for SCC to live in the moment, plan for the future, and remember the past, the IoT technologies that would be most beneficial are mobile crowdsourcing and cyber-physical cloud computing.

Mobile crowdsourcing is an IoT application that can collect data to help communities in three categories: environmental, infrastructure, and social. Environmentally, it can collect data about air pollution, for infrastructure it can find out about traffic, and socially it can share exercise data with other community members.

Cyber-Physical Cloud Computing (CPCC) is explained as, ”a new computing paradigm which can rapidly build, modify and provision cyber-physical systems composed of a set of cloud computing based sensor, processing, control and data services.” CPCC has many benefits, including efficient use of resources, modular composition, rapid development and scalability, smart adaption to environment. This can be incorporated in the SCC for smart transportation, smart grid and smart healthcare.

The potential for small, more rural areas to become “smarter” with the addition of SCC through the use of IoT is promising for the future of the connected world.