Editorial

5 pages, 187 KiB

Open AccessEditorial

Advances in Sustainable Smart Cities and Territories

by Juan M. Corchado and Saber Trabelsi

Electronics 2022, 11(8), 1280; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11081280 - 18 Apr 2022

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1354

The smart city concept refers to the implementation of disruptive technologies in the urban environment, with the aim of creating an optimal citizen experience [...] Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Sustainable Smart Cities and Territories)

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34 pages, 12671 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Interactive System for Package Delivery in Pedestrian Areas Using a Self-Developed Fleet of Autonomous Vehicles

by Mihai Kocsis, Raoul Zöllner and Gheorghe Mogan

Electronics 2022, 11(5), 748; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11050748 - 28 Feb 2022

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2766

Abstract

In the context of automation and digitalization technologies and due to the existing trends of re-urbanization, autonomous vehicles for execution of services such as package delivery, transportation, vegetation care and street cleaning are considered innovative solutions. This paper presents a concept and implementation [...] Read more.

In the context of automation and digitalization technologies and due to the existing trends of re-urbanization, autonomous vehicles for execution of services such as package delivery, transportation, vegetation care and street cleaning are considered innovative solutions. This paper presents a concept and implementation of a system developed to plan and deliver packages within pedestrian areas, using autonomous vehicles. The novelty of the system lies in the systematic view of this use case, which considers all stakeholder views from the CEP (courier, express, and parcel services) provider, traffic participants, and customers and where the technical and technological innovation is guided by interactivity with the users. This work outlines the design and integration of user interaction, the developed vehicles within the fleet designed for operating within pedestrian environments, and localization and navigation strategies. After the vehicles were approved and certified from a technical point of view to operate in pedestrian areas, the entire system was tested and evaluated in a new city district of Heilbronn with approximately 800 inhabitants. In the last six weeks of experiments, 572 packages were delivered in an autonomous way. The interactive way of planning and executing services on demand led, according to a market study in Heilbronn, to an increased acceptance of the users for autonomous package delivery services from 76% to 91%. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Sustainable Smart Cities and Territories)

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10 pages, 1194 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

IoT-Based Human Fall Detection System

by Osvaldo Ribeiro, Luis Gomes and Zita Vale

Electronics 2022, 11(4), 592; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11040592 - 15 Feb 2022

Cited by 17 | Viewed by 5876

Abstract

Human falls are an issue that especially affects elderly people, resulting in permanent disabilities or even in the person’s death. Preventing human falls is a social desire, but it is almost impossible to achieve because it is not possible to ensure full prevention. [...] Read more.

Human falls are an issue that especially affects elderly people, resulting in permanent disabilities or even in the person’s death. Preventing human falls is a social desire, but it is almost impossible to achieve because it is not possible to ensure full prevention. A possible solution is the detection of human falls in near real-time so that help can quickly be provided. This has the potential to greatly reduce the severity of the fall in long-term health consequences. This work proposes a solution based on the internet of things devices installed in people’s homes. The proposed non-wearable solution is non-intrusive and can be deployed not only in homes but also in hospitals, rehabilitation facilities, and elderly homes. The solution uses a three-layered computation architecture composed of edge, fog, and cloud. A mathematical model using the Morlet wavelet and an artificial intelligence model using artificial neural networks are used for human fall classification; both approaches are compared. The results showed that the combination of both models is possible and brings benefits to the system, achieving an accuracy of 92.5% without false negatives. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Sustainable Smart Cities and Territories)

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18 pages, 1192 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Towards the Prioritised Use of Transportation Infrastructures: The Case of Vehicle-Specific Dynamic Access Restrictions in City Centres

by Holger Billhardt, Alberto Fernández, Pasqual Martí, Javier Prieto Tejedor and Sascha Ossowski

Electronics 2022, 11(4), 576; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11040576 - 14 Feb 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1470

Abstract

One of the main problems that local authorities of large cities have to face is the regulation of urban mobility. They need to provide the means to allow for the efficient movement of people and distribution of goods. However, the provisioning of transportation [...] Read more.

One of the main problems that local authorities of large cities have to face is the regulation of urban mobility. They need to provide the means to allow for the efficient movement of people and distribution of goods. However, the provisioning of transportation services needs to take into account general global objectives, like reducing emissions and having more healthy living environments, which may not always be aligned with individual interests. Urban mobility is usually provided through a transport infrastructure that includes all the elements that support mobility. On many occasions, the capacity of the elements of this infrastructure is lower than the actual demand and thus different transportation activities compete for their use. In this paper, we argue that scarce transport infrastructure elements should be assigned dynamically and in a prioritised manner to transport activities that have a higher utility from the point of view of society; for example, activities that produce less pollution and provide more value to society. In this paper, we define a general model for prioritizing the use of a particular type of transportation infrastructure element called time-unlimited elements, whose usage time is unknown a priori, and illustrate its dynamics through two use cases: vehicle-specific dynamic access restriction in city centres (i) based on the usage levels of available parking spaces and (ii) to assure sustained admissible air quality levels in the city centre. We carry out several experiments using the SUMO traffic simulation tool to evaluate our proposal. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Sustainable Smart Cities and Territories)

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12 pages, 1028 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Intelligent One-Class Classifiers for the Development of an Intrusion Detection System: The MQTT Case Study

by Esteban Jove, Jose Aveleira-Mata, Héctor Alaiz-Moretón, José-Luis Casteleiro-Roca, David Yeregui Marcos del Blanco, Francisco Zayas-Gato, Héctor Quintián and José Luis Calvo-Rolle

Electronics 2022, 11(3), 422; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11030422 - 30 Jan 2022

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 2807

Abstract

The ever-increasing number of smart devices connected to the internet poses an unprecedented security challenge. This article presents the implementation of an Intrusion Detection System (IDS) based on the deployment of different one-class classifiers to prevent attacks over the Internet of Things (IoT) [...] Read more.

The ever-increasing number of smart devices connected to the internet poses an unprecedented security challenge. This article presents the implementation of an Intrusion Detection System (IDS) based on the deployment of different one-class classifiers to prevent attacks over the Internet of Things (IoT) protocol Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT). The utilization of real data sets has allowed us to train the one-class algorithms, showing a remarkable performance in detecting attacks. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Sustainable Smart Cities and Territories)

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14 pages, 322 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Demand-Responsive Shared Transportation: A Self-Interested Proposal

by Pasqual Martí, Jaume Jordán, Fernando De la Prieta, Holger Billhardt and Vicente Julian

Electronics 2022, 11(1), 78; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11010078 - 27 Dec 2021

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2038

Abstract

With the world population highly increasing, efficient methods of transportation are more necessary than ever. On the other hand, the sharing economy must be explored and applied where possible, aiming to palliate the effects of human development on the environment. In this paper [...] Read more.

With the world population highly increasing, efficient methods of transportation are more necessary than ever. On the other hand, the sharing economy must be explored and applied where possible, aiming to palliate the effects of human development on the environment. In this paper we explore demand-responsive shared transportation as a system with the potential to serve its users’ displacement needs while being less polluting. In contrast with previous works, we focus on a distributed proposal that allows each vehicle to retain its private information. Our work describes a partially dynamic system in which the vehicles are self-interested: they decide which users to serve according to the benefit it reports them. With our modelling, the system can be adapted to mobility platforms of autonomous drivers and even simulate the competition among different companies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Sustainable Smart Cities and Territories)

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17 pages, 1097 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Risk Analysis with the Dempster–Shafer Theory for Smart City Planning: The Case of Qatar

by Reem Al Sharif and Shaligram Pokharel

Electronics 2021, 10(24), 3080; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics10243080 - 10 Dec 2021

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2498

Abstract

Smart cities support the enhancement of the quality of life of their residents, for which the use of a robust integrated platform of information and communication technology is required. However, not all cities have similar technology infrastructure and a similar understanding of the [...] Read more.

Smart cities support the enhancement of the quality of life of their residents, for which the use of a robust integrated platform of information and communication technology is required. However, not all cities have similar technology infrastructure and a similar understanding of the quality of life. Therefore, holistic planning, resource support, security, continuous updates, and dynamic operational enhancements should be considered while planning smart cities. However, a smart city could be vulnerable to security threats and a loss of personal or classified information due to the complexity of technology integration. Therefore, understanding and assessing different risks and embedding risk management mechanisms would be required to minimize vulnerability exposure in smart cities. This paper proposes a risk assessment method using the Dempster–Shafer theory for smart city planning. The Dempster–Shafer theory is used here to analyze the risks perceptions of experts. The principal component analysis method is used to analyze the data obtained from risk assessment. The application of this method is determined through a smart city test case in Qatar. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Sustainable Smart Cities and Territories)

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12 pages, 678 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Neural Network Explainable AI Based on Paraconsistent Analysis: An Extension

by Francisco S. Marcondes, Dalila Durães, Flávio Santos, José João Almeida and Paulo Novais

Electronics 2021, 10(21), 2660; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics10212660 - 30 Oct 2021

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1558

Abstract

This paper explores the use of paraconsistent analysis for assessing neural networks from an explainable AI perspective. This is an early exploration paper aiming to understand whether paraconsistent analysis can be applied for understanding neural networks and whether it is worth further develop [...] Read more.

This paper explores the use of paraconsistent analysis for assessing neural networks from an explainable AI perspective. This is an early exploration paper aiming to understand whether paraconsistent analysis can be applied for understanding neural networks and whether it is worth further develop the subject in future research. The answers to these two questions are affirmative. Paraconsistent analysis provides insightful prediction visualisation through a mature formal framework that provides proper support for reasoning. The significant potential envisioned is the that paraconsistent analysis will be used for guiding neural network development projects, despite the performance issues. This paper provides two explorations. The first was a baseline experiment based on MNIST for establishing the link between paraconsistency and neural networks. The second experiment aimed to detect violence in audio files to verify whether the paraconsistent framework scales to industry level problems. The conclusion shown by this early assessment is that further research on this subject is worthful, and may eventually result in a significant contribution to the field. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Sustainable Smart Cities and Territories)

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