—Internet-of-Things (IoT) technologies in the past decade have matured both in the hardware and software aspects for large-scale deployment. Alongst IoT, the Smart Cities Concept is also taking shape. Pilot projects and implementations in multiple cities are trying to find out the feasibility and applicability of Smart City Information and Communications Technology (ICT). IoT assets along with the legacy assets are essential for Smart City ICT implementations. Power Integrated With the evolution of Smart Cities and concentration of people in the cities, it becomes necessary to be ready for future Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Recovery (HADR) operations. But the huge void in heterogeneous IoT and legacy technologies create a big hurdle in establishing and handling the HADR operations. This aim of this PhD is to investigate the interoperability aspects amongst the various IoT technologies and Smart City concepts. The goal is to create a framework and an architecture for allowing the interoperable operation of ICT assets in a Smart City environment. This framework would enable rapid deployment of HADR relevant technology assets on the ground allowing multiple HADR agencies to seamlessly communicate while having shared Situational Awareness (SA) and complementing each others capabilities.
This PhD aims at investigating the technological heterogeneity in the domain of IoT with regards to Smart City and non-public ICT domains, and finding out interoperabilty aspects within and between these domains. The outcomes of the studies and investigation would provide the insight into reaching the goal of engineering an interoperable architecture and framework between the distinct ICT domains in a Smart City environment. The devised framework should enable multiple public (Smart City ICT) and non-public (Military, Police etc.) agencies to communicate and co-operate in HADR operations in a Smart City environment. A. Background The world of Internet-of-Things (IoT) is the new revolution in the modern technology realm after the intrusion of Internet and mobile technologies. Gartner forecasts that there would be 20.4 billion IoT devices in use by 2020 and 125 billion by 2030 [1]. This surge in devices has led to the intrusion of IoT devices in everyday lives. Accordingly, technologies and applications to support these devices have also evolved immensely. The IoT domain relies on the background concept of being connected to the internet or some kind of network to be able to perform actions on resource-constrained devices. These limitations on device size and capabilities have led to devising of network and communication protocols, data exchange mechanisms and Ontologies to be able to exploit the capabilities of these devices [2]–[4]. Project Center in Trichy As the IoT domain has expanded, the concept of Smart Cities based on these newly available ICT standards, protocols and devices has also come into existence. These Smart Cities, by using these IoT technologies alongst the legacy devices, standards and protocols aim at making the lives of citizens in the cities better [5]. B. Problem Description Whilst the surge of IoT and Smart Cities has benefited the ICT development for the future generations, it has also led to the issue of interoperability between the existing (legacy) ICT systems and the systems based on IoT. The legacy assets can not be completely replaced with IoT systems [6], [7]. Thus the IoT assets need to co-exist with their associated legacy systems and exchange information with them. The legacy systems use certain standards and protocols developed specifically for systems which are relatively much powerful (computationally) and have more or less reliable power supplies. On the other hand, IoT platform based systems, have different needs and capabilities and thus the supporting network and communication protocols, data exchange mechanisms and Ontologies are different [8]. This leads to the issue of the systems not being able to talk to each other. There is no standardized architecture or methodology which lets these systems co-exist or be easily interoperable either from the view point of [9]–[12]: 1) Network protocol usage for optimal operation of the hardware assets. 2) Data exchange mechanisms or standards, data models for defining optimal IoT assets utilization which are traditionally used for legacy assets.
3) Service modelling based on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) for the services to be running on the heterogeneous devices. 4) Ontologies that clearly define interactions between these heterogeneous devices in a Smart City environment. Apart from the heterogeneity in the operation within the ICT systems, there lies a huge void in the way the public and non-public ICT domains work. Non-public ICT infrastructure assets belonging to governmental organizations like the police, fire services, military etc are engineered separately and also in most cases, ICT assets are kept separate from the public infrastructure used by the civilians [13], [14]. Traditionally, non-public ICT systems are not supposed or not designed to talk to commercial or public ICT systems [17], [18]. https://powerintegrated.in/ The information flow through these organizations is in most cases, sensitive and need to be kept isolated from the civilian domain due to security and confidentiality aspects. So, the communication networks, protocols, ontologies, data formats, physical assets (communication mediums, devices), syntax and semantics of information etc. in most cases is engineered differently as compared to the public ICT domains [16]. The information that needs to be made available to the public is filtered and examined before being allowed to be accessed by the public [15]. For a Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Recovery (HADR) operation in a Smart City environment, the city’s ICT deployment i.e. available devices and services can help the non-public organizations gain better SA [21]. So, in a Smart City scenario, non-public systems cannot talk i.e. be interoperable with the deployed Smart City assets. As Smart Cities have become the concentration point of human populations with their tangible and non-tangible assets, any incident, even on a small scale has large scale implications, both human-factor wise and economically [19]. Considering that disaster recovery operations need quick deployment of rescue assets and personnel, the non-interoperability of Smart City and non-public ICT systems will lead to non-assistance or reduced effectiveness of the rescue efforts and capabilities. And further on, delay in the HADR efforts will scale the magnitude of the disaster incrementally. Based on [20], figure 1 shows the envisioned high level architecture for HADR Operations Interoperability in a Smart City Environment. The figure shows the ICT domains from HADR agencies and Smart City. These domains within themselves might employ IoT as well as legacy assets. Using a boundary gateway at the domain edges, they can inter-operate for a HADR operation for sharing information and assets to complement their capabilities. Non-public organizations like the military have started looking into the idea of utilizing IoT for its operational requirements to either complement or replace the existing sensors, actuators, controllers, computers etc. Inclusion of the IoT devices means that the the non-public organizations need to extend the existing framework to adapt to the IoT-based network, data standards and protocols [22]. So, this creates two levels of problems: 1) How to make use of the recent IoT evolution to assist disaster recovery operations? 2) How to connect to the Smart City Domain in a disaster recovery scenario which contains legacy as well as IoT devices and technologies?
