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Advances in Wireless Sensor Networks for Smart City

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A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Internet of Things".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 25 December 2024 | Viewed by 15541

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Guisong Yang

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Guest Editor

Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China
Interests: wireless sensor networks; Internet of Things; pervasive computing; mobile crowd sensing

Dr. Yutong Liu

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Guest Editor

Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
Interests: wireless sensing; AI; IoT; mobile computing

Prof. Dr. Linghe Kong

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Guest Editor

1. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
2. School of Electronic Technology and Engineering, Shanghai Technical Institute of Electronics and Information, Shanghai 201411, China
Interests: Internet of things; 5G; big data; blockchain; mobile computing

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

As the process of urbanization expands and develops, smart cities are desired where modern technologies can be leveraged to manage urban resources more intelligently, which include space, energy, and manpower, thereby improving the quality of life for citizens. Wireless sensor networks, as a form of digitalizing infrastructure, provide a promising solution for smart-city construction following the “Sense–Analyze–Actuate” paradigm. The “Sense” step gathers multi-modal sensing data from sensors tha have been deployed all around a city, which are then transmitted through wireless spectrums. The “Analyze” step aims to improve the authenticity of these aggregated sensing data, ensuring the data quality and security. Additionally, the final “Actuate” step mainly explores the potential correlations and applications from large amounts of sensing data to promote the intelligence of smart cities. For this step, optimization calculations and artificial intelligence are adopted to understand the data, which result in city-management decisions being made in a centralized or decentralized manner.

This Special Issue of Sensors aims to collect state-of-the-art research papers on topics including, but not limited to, the following areas:

Advanced wireless sensing technologies and smart-sensor designs for smart cities;
Advanced sensing data storage, transmission, and reasoning techniques for smart cities;
Optimized sensing data quality, security, and privacy management for smart cities;
Novel smart city sensing system designs and applications.

Dr. Guisong Yang
Dr. Yutong Liu
Prof. Dr. Linghe Kong
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sensors is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

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18 pages, 970 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Precise and Stable Space-Based Time System for Navigation in Smart Cities

by Shaoqian Li, Baojun Lin, Rui Li, Xiaogong Hu and Richang Dong

Sensors 2024, 24(2), 480; https://doi.org/10.3390/s24020480 - 12 Jan 2024

Viewed by 476

Abstract

The high-accuracy and high-stability space-based time system is necessary for satellite navigation systems to achieve high quality of service (QoS) on navigation and positioning in smart city applications. This paper proposes a precise and high-stability space-based time system established under the autonomous time scale of navigation satellites. The generation, maintenance, and transfer of high-precision space-based time references are researched. A centralized time comparison method based on the ALGOS algorithm conducts the two-way time comparison of the inter-satellite link. Specifically, using the relative clock difference observations of all links between satellites for a certain period of time, the clock difference, clock speed, and clock drift parameters of

n - 1

stars in a constellation of n stars relative to the same reference can be estimated simultaneously. Simulations are conducted on real collected data from the Beidou navigation systems when providing services to smart cities around the world. The simulation results show the high accuracy and stability of the proposed space-based time system under the autonomous time scale reference. Moreover, the clock offset monitoring arc coverage is much higher than the satellite clock offset obtained by the direct observation of the satellite and the anchor station. It proves the efficiency of the proposed space-based time system to be used for satellite clock offset modeling and prediction. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Wireless Sensor Networks for Smart City)

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21 pages, 2012 KiB

Open AccessArticle

AutoBar: Automatic Barrier Coverage Formation for Danger Keep Out Applications in Smart City

by Ying Shao, Qiwen Wang, Xingjian Lu, Zhanquan Wang, E Zhao, Shuang Fang, Jianxiong Chen, Linghe Kong and Kayhan Zrar Ghafoor

Sensors 2023, 23(18), 7787; https://doi.org/10.3390/s23187787 - 10 Sep 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 901

Abstract

Barrier coverage is a fundamental application in wireless sensor networks, which are widely used for smart cities. In applications, the sensors form a barrier for the intruders and protect an area through intrusion detection. In this paper, we study a new branch of barrier coverage, namely warning barrier coverage (WBC). Different from the classic barrier coverage, WBC has the inverse protect direction, which moves the sensors surrounding a dangerous region and protects any unexpected visitors by warning them away from the dangers. WBC holds a promising prospect in many danger keep out applications for smart cities. For example, a WBC can enclose the debris area in the sea and alarm any approaching ships in order to avoid their damaging propellers. One special feature of WBC is that the target region is usually dangerous and its boundary is previously unknown. Hence, the scattered mobile nodes need to detect the boundary and form the barrier coverage themselves. It is challenging to form these distributed sensor nodes into a barrier because a node can sense only the local information and there is no global information of the unknown region or other nodes. To this end, in response to the newly proposed issue of the formation of barrier cover, we propose a novel solution AutoBar for mobile sensor nodes to automatically form a WBC for smart cities. Notably, this is the first work to trigger the coverage problem of the alarm barrier, wherein the regional information is not pre-known. To pursue the high coverage quality, we theoretically derive the optimal distribution pattern of sensor nodes using convex theory. Based on the analysis, we design a fully distributed algorithm that enables nodes to collaboratively move toward the optimal distribution pattern. In addition, AutoBar is able to reorganize the barrier even if any node is broken. To validate the feasibility of AutoBar, we develop the prototype of the specialized mobile node, which consists of two kinds of sensors: one for boundary detection and another for visitor detection. Based on the prototype, we conduct extensive real trace-driven simulations in various smart city scenarios. Performance results demonstrate that AutoBar outperforms the existing barrier coverage strategies in terms of coverage quality, formation duration, and communication overhead. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Wireless Sensor Networks for Smart City)

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16 pages, 1247 KiB

Open AccessArticle

In-City Rain Mapping from Commercial Microwave Links—Challenges and Opportunities

by Roy Janco, Jonatan Ostrometzky and Hagit Messer

Sensors 2023, 23(10), 4653; https://doi.org/10.3390/s23104653 - 11 May 2023

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1159

Abstract

Obtaining accurate rainfall measurements is highly important in urban areas, having a significant impact on different aspects in city life. Opportunistic rainfall sensing utilizing measurements collected by existing microwave and mmWave-based wireless networks has been researched in the last two decades and can be considered as an opportunistic integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) approach. In this paper, we compare two methods that utilize received signal level (RSL) measurements obtained by an existing smart-city wireless network deployed in the city of Rehovot, Israel, for rain estimation. The first method is a model-based approach using the RSL measurements from short links, in which two design parameters are calibrated empirically. This method is combined with a known wet/dry classification method, which is based on the rolling standard deviation of the RSL. The second method is a data-driven approach, based on a recurrent neural network (RNN), which is trained to estimate rainfall and classify wet/dry periods. We compare the results of rainfall classification and estimation from both methods and show that the data-driven approach slightly outperforms the empirical model and that the improvement is most significant for light rainfall events. Furthermore, we apply both methods to construct high-resolution 2D maps of accumulated rainfall in the city of Rehovot. The ground-level rainfall maps constructed over the city area are compared for the first time with weather radar rainfall maps obtained from the Israeli Meteorological Service (IMS). The rain maps generated by the smart-city network are found to be in agreement with the average rainfall depth obtained from the radar, demonstrating the potential of using existing smart-city networks as a source for constructing 2D high-resolution rainfall maps. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Wireless Sensor Networks for Smart City)

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14 pages, 4071 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Mathematical Modeling and Validation of Retransmission-Based Mutant MQTT for Improving Quality of Service in Developing Smart Cities

by Jawad Ali, Mohammad Haseeb Zafar, Chaminda Hewage, Raheel Hassan and Rameez Asif

Sensors 2022, 22(24), 9751; https://doi.org/10.3390/s22249751 - 12 Dec 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1599

Abstract

Unreliable networks often use excess bandwidth for data integration in smart cities. For this purpose, Messaging Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) with a certain quality of service (QoS) is employed. Data integrity and data security are frequently compromised for reducing bandwidth usage while designing integrated applications. Thus, for a reliable and secure integrated Internet of Everything (IoE) service, a range of network parameters are conditioned to achieve the required quality of a deliverable service. In this work, a QoS-0-based MQTT is developed in such a manner that the transparent MQTT protocol uses Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)-based connectivity with various rules for the retransmission of contents if the requests are not entertained for a fixed duration. The work explores the ways to improve the overall content delivery probability. The parameters are examined over a transparent gateway-based TCP network after developing a mathematical model for the proposed retransmission-based mutant QoS-0. The probability model is then verified by an actual physical network where the repeated content delivery is explored at VM-based MQTT, local network-based broker and a remote server. The results show that the repeated transmission of contents from the sender improves the content delivery probability over the unreliable MQTT-based Internet of Things (IoT) for developing smart cities’ applications. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Wireless Sensor Networks for Smart City)

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21 pages, 9136 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Design and Maintenance of Low-Orbit Navigation Constellation for Traffic Control in a Smart City

by Yi Zheng, Baojun Lin, Rui Li and Yutong Liu

Sensors 2022, 22(23), 9478; https://doi.org/10.3390/s22239478 - 04 Dec 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1567

Abstract

The traffic control issue in the smart city scenario gives rise to the higher requirements of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) services, especially in terms of navigation accuracy, together with coverage continuity, and multiplicity. The dense urban environment leads to higher elevation angles for navigation in such areas, which requires a lower altitude of the constellation, as well as a larger number of satellites. In the existing literature, the design and maintenance of the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) navigation constellation that fulfills the requirements of the smart city are not provided. Hence, based on the requirements and constraints of the smart city scenario, this article studies the relation between orbital height, user elevation angle, and coverage. It designs the configuration of an LEO navigation constellation that not only achieves global sensing coverage, but also provides a continuous lane-level navigation service with multiple coverages for the key area. In addition, considering the atmospheric drag in low orbits and the constraint of satellite power and attitude control, a method is proposed by rotating solar panels to change the effective frontal area of the satellite to achieve relative configuration maintenance of the LEO constellation. The results show that the LEO navigation constellation has a 0 s revisit time in five chosen smart cities, and each city has more than four-times coverage every second; the Geographic Dilution of Precision (GDOP) values of five cities are smaller than 0.47. The average navigation accuracy of five cities is 2.01. With the conduction of the one-year station-keeping simulation, the phase deviation of two satellites is less than 0.6° and it gradually converges to 0.1°, where the semi-major axis deviation is less than 80 m. With our proposed method, the active station-keeping control is not needed in one year, and the fuel consumption can be reduced. Finally, the continuity of the navigation service can be assured. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Wireless Sensor Networks for Smart City)

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21 pages, 1282 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Propagation Measurements for IQRF Network in an Urban Environment

by Mohammed Bouzidi, Marshed Mohamed, Yaser Dalveren, Arild Moldsvor, Faouzi Alaya Cheikh and Mohammad Derawi

Sensors 2022, 22(18), 7012; https://doi.org/10.3390/s22187012 - 16 Sep 2022

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 1384

Abstract

Recently, IQRF has emerged as a promising technology for the Internet of Things (IoT), owing to its ability to support short- and medium-range low-power communications. However, real world deployment of IQRF-based wireless sensor networks (WSNs) requires accurate path loss modelling to estimate network coverage and other performances. In the existing literature, extensive research on propagation modelling for IQRF network deployment in urban environments has not been provided yet. Therefore, this study proposes an empirical path loss model for the deployment of IQRF networks in a peer-to-peer configured system where the IQRF sensor nodes operate in the 868 MHz band. For this purpose, extensive measurement campaigns are conducted outdoor in an urban environment for Line-of-Sight (LoS) and Non-Line-of-Sight (NLoS) links. Furthermore, in order to evaluate the prediction accuracy of well-known empirical path loss models for urban environments, the measurements are compared with the predicted path loss values. The results show that the COST-231 Walfisch–Ikegami model has higher prediction accuracy and can be used for IQRF network planning in LoS links, while the COST-231 Hata model has better accuracy in NLoS links. On the other hand, the effects of antennas on the performance of IQRF transceivers (TRs) for LoS and NLoS links are also scrutinized. The use of IQRF TRs with a Straight-Line Dipole Antenna (SLDA) antenna is found to offer more stable results when compared to IQRF (TRs) with Meander Line Antenna (MLA) antenna. Therefore, it is believed that the findings presented in this article could offer useful insights for researchers interested in the development of IoT-based smart city applications. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Wireless Sensor Networks for Smart City)

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Review

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31 pages, 2940 KiB

Open AccessReview

A Survey on 5G and LPWAN-IoT for Improved Smart Cities and Remote Area Applications: From the Aspect of Architecture and Security

by Emmanuel Utochukwu Ogbodo, Adnan M. Abu-Mahfouz and Anish M. Kurien

Sensors 2022, 22(16), 6313; https://doi.org/10.3390/s22166313 - 22 Aug 2022

Cited by 33 | Viewed by 7330

Abstract

Addressing the recent trend of the massive demand for resources and ubiquitous use for all citizens has led to the conceptualization of technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and smart cities. Ubiquitous IoT connectivity can be achieved to serve both urban and underserved remote areas such as rural communities by deploying 5G mobile networks with Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN). The current architectures will not offer flexible connectivity to many IoT applications due to high service demand, data exchange, emerging technologies, and security challenges. Hence, this paper explores various architectures that consider a hybrid 5G-LPWAN-IoT and Smart Cities. This includes security challenges as well as endogenous security and solutions in 5G and LPWAN-IoT. The slicing of virtual networks using software-defined network (SDN)/network function virtualization (NFV) based on the different quality of service (QoS) to satisfy different services and quality of experience (QoE) is presented. Also, a strategy that considers the implementation of 5G jointly with Weightless-N (TVWS) technologies to reduce the cell edge interference is considered. Discussions on the need for ubiquity connectivity leveraging 5G and LPWAN-IoT are presented. In addition, future research directions are presented, including a unified 5G network and LPWAN-IoT architecture that will holistically support integration with emerging technologies and endogenous security for improved/secured smart cities and remote areas IoT applications. Finally, the use of LPWAN jointly with low earth orbit (LEO) satellites for ubiquitous IoT connectivity is advocated in this paper. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Wireless Sensor Networks for Smart City)

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