Energy efficiency and the role of IoT in a smart city connected community

Energy efficiency and IoT deployments offer a much higher value proposition if these can function in the context of a smart city in a connected community. These can then contribute more to the safety, security and improve the environment in which the citizens live and work. In order to make urban living more safe, secure and environmentally sustainable, the focus needs to be on environmental quality, public safety, city planning, industry facilitation, resource utilization, energy conservation, traffic control, telemedicine, homecare, interpersonal communications, social activities and entertainment. A smart city relies on widely distributed smart (IoT) devices to monitor the urban environment in real-time, collect information for intelligent decision making, and facilitate various services to improve the quality of urban living. The distributed network of intelligent sensor nodes, as well as data centers/clouds where sensor data are stored and shared, constitutes a smart city infrastructure. Participatory sensing plays an indispensable role in emerging initiatives of a smart city, which retrieves sensor data from groups of people or communities. The proliferation of personal mobile devices and development of online social networks make participatory sensing viable at a large scale but introduce many open problems at the same time. Smart cities address urban challenges such as pollution, energy efficiency, security, parking, traffic, transportation, and others by utilizing advanced information and communication technologies (ICT) in data gathering and communications interconnectivity via the Internet. It provides real time and remote monitoring for different aspects of data management in areas such as transportation, communication, video surveillance, and sensor integration throughout the city.