IoT-Based Systems for Safe and Secure Smart Cities

Dear Colleagues,

IoT and, more generally, sensor-based systems provide the building blocks for the majority of smart city applications, spanning from domain-specific support services, such as for mobility, home, economy, health, and infrastructure, to large-scale and interoperable networked systems realized by local digital twin hubs. Thus, safety and security are among the requirements to be addressed for many of these systems at development and during run-time.

IoT-based systems specifically devoted to urban security and safety are of great interest for smart cities, with challenges related to real-time requirements, accuracy, scalability, and dependability, given the many uncertainties in terms of data and the events.

These aspects should be managed and assessed at both the conceptual and architectural levels and by accounting for the smartness degree of the embedded software technology to support increased types of autonomy in activities such as problem solving and decision making. The combination of IoT and artificial intelligence to produce smart city applications aimed at improving resilience poses new social challenges, intertwined with security and safety, such as trust, ethics, and data protection, which require systemic and multidisciplinary system quality assessment.

This Special Issue aims to provide a new outlook on the models, methods, innovative technologies, and cutting-edge implementations for safe and secure cities. These include applications such as monitoring systems based on sensor, drone, and/or satellite data or data-intensive urban platforms, and approaches and techniques for safety analysis and assessment. It solicits research papers, experience-based papers, and comprehensive literature reviews and surveys on approaches for smart city safety and security.

Dr. Maria Luisa Villani
Dr. Antonio De Nicola
Dr. Rita Zgheib
Guest Editors

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