The unified wireless smart access for smart cities in the context of a cyber physical system

Currently evolving HetNet access infrastructures will not support the ubiquitous information services of a future Smart City (SC) with digitization and connection of everything and everyone. The Access Network (AN) of such a SC will have all the characteristics of a network which is able to offer revolutionary services, capabilities, and facilities that are hard to be provided using the existing telecommunication technologies. This paper provides a vision related to the concept of a future AN for SCs and considers some of the challenges related to its functional requirements and design. The vision is that such a future ANs will develop towards a flexible and cognitive Unified Wireless Smart Access (UWSA) infrastructure with intelligence spread down to the level of each single user. The UWSA with all its different types of users will function as a unique large scale complex system with integrated Communication, Navigation, Sensing and Services (CONASENSE). Such UWSA will acquire the characteristics and performance of a CPS with users in the loop (UiL), the latter introducing stochasticity in the system. The described in the paper structure of the UWSA could be the basis for the definition of model of a CPS with UiL reflecting the important system parameters and functional relationships for analyzing and optimizing system performance.