IoT Applications in Smart Cities

A smart city evolves with the use of emerging smart technologies to support and sustain a better living and to improve the overall quality of life of its citizens. Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) play a pivotal role in building smart cities. IoT is a pervasive network of objects where each object is connected, has a unique internet address, and is accessible from anywhere and at any time. IoT provides an ideal platform for collecting massive amounts of data and AI provides a mechanism to analyze data and make smart decisions. Almost every aspect of a smart city uses this approach and includes smart infrastructure, smart transportation, smart healthcare, smart energy, smart environment, smart governance, smart architectural planning, smart buildings, and much more. In this paper, we elaborate on the concept of smart cities and the factors that are influencing the emergence of smart cities. The world population is expected to be about 10 billion by the year 2050 and it is expected that 70% of the population will be living in the cities. It is also expected that energy use will grow by 40% by that time. We discuss challenges, intricacies, interdependencies, and opportunities as cities move forward to become smart cities.