Urban Automation Networks: Current and Emerging Solutions for Sensed Data Collection and Actuation in Smart Cities

• Main Authors: Carles Gomez, Josep Paradells
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2015-09-01
• Series: Sensors
• Subjects: smart cities; urban automation networks; sensor and actuator networks; low-power wireless networks; IEEE 802.15.4; IEEE 802.11; cellular networks; SIGFOX; DTN; Internet of Things
• Online Access: http://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/15/9/22874

Urban Automation Networks (UANs) are being deployed worldwide in order to enable Smart City applications. Given the crucial role of UANs, as well as their diversity, it is critically important to assess their properties and trade-offs. This article introduces the requirements and challenges for UANs, characterizes the main current and emerging UAN paradigms, provides guidelines for their design and/or choice, and comparatively examines their performance in terms of a variety of parameters including coverage, power consumption, latency, standardization status and economic cost.