Information and communication technologies, as well as various physical devices connected to the Internet of Things (IoT) network, have led to the birth of the smart city, bringing much improved efficiency in city operations and services to citizens, and changing the relationship between citizens and the city. Despite the advantages, smart city technology has also encountered a number of challenges, such as insufficient consideration of the quality of citizen experiences, high resource consumption, and lack of large-scale management optimization. Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and fifth-generation (5G) cellular networks have come up with opportunities and innovative solutions to overcome them. Consequently, the integration of AI, 5G, and smart cities has been emerging as a promising trend to promote the benign evolvement of the smart city.
The COVID-19 crisis brings sudden and dramatic changes in our society and daily life, and accelerates the evolution of smart cities. Due to COVID-19, we are forced to work and study remotely. Furthermore, the side effects will persist even after the pandemic subsides. For example, not all urban office buildings will reopen, and work and lifestyles may never return to normal. All these raise new research challenges for the smart city, such as immersive multimedia systems to facilitate telework and education, wireless sensing to assist telemedicine and reduce contact appointments, and autonomous factories. Therefore, there is a need to design smart algorithms, methodologies, and applications for future smart cities after COVID-19.
This special section aims to solicit state-of-the-art technologies and applications for future smart cities after COVID-19. The anticipated submissions are unpublished, high-quality, original contributions in either theoretical/analytic studies, review articles, or experimental works. Topics include, but are not limited to, the following as they relate to future smart cities:
- Architecture and infrastructure
- Mobile edge/fog computing
- Intelligent transport systems
- IoT architectures, protocols, and algorithms
- Robotics systems and applications
- Crowdsourcing and mobile crowdsensing
- Social media and online social networks
- Ubiquitous sensing
- Multimedia systems
- Blockchain and distributed ledgers
- 5G and beyond
- Green and robust systems
- AI and machine learning
- Networking techniques
- Remote working and education
- Quality of experience and quality of service
- Security and privacy
- Novel applications
Important Dates
Submissions due: 30 June 2021
Publication: 2021
Submission Guidelines
Visit the Author Information page for details on how to submit.
Guest Editors
- Zhi Liu (lead), The University of Electro-Communications, Tokyo, Japan (liu@ieee.org)
- Stephan Sigg, Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland (stephan.sigg@aalto.fi)
- Xianfu Chen, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Oulu, Finland (xianfu.chen@vtt.fi)
- Ruozhou Yu, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, United States (ryu5@ncsu.edu)
- Takuya Fujihashi, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan (fujihashi.takuya@ist.osaka-u.ac.jp)
