8/10/2019 Internet of Things has a large role to play in smart cities

1/362 GovernanceNow | November 1-15, 2014

The department of electronics

and information technology

(DeitY) recently released the

draft policy on Internet of Things

(IoT, interconnection of uniquely

identiable embedded devices).To understand the technology

better, Shubhendu Parthspeaks

to Dr Kevin Curran on how

IoT can impact governance.

Curran, who is known for his

work on location positioning

within indoor environments,

pervasive computing and

internet security, also discussed

IoTs role in connected smart

cities and threats associatedwith machine-to-machine (M2M)

communication. Excerpts from

the email interview:

Corporate world has found Internetof Things (IoT) useful to drivebusiness and customer serviceinitiatives. Do you think IoT can helpgovernments too?IoT can be used in practically all sce-narios for public services by govern-

ments. For instance, protecting the en-vironment will require multifacetedsolutions, but IoT can uniquely helpaddress problems of unsafe water, airpollution, landll waste and deforesta-tion. Sensor-enabled devices can helpmonitor the environmental impactof cities, collect details about sewers,air quality, and garbage. Such devicescan also help monitor woods, rivers,lakes and oceans. Many environmen-tal trends are so complex that they are

dicult to conceptualise. Collectingdata is the rst step towards under-standing and ultimately reducing theenvironmental impact of human activ-ity and that is where IoT has an import-ant role to play.

Can you elaborate on it, in terms ofhow IoT is being used globally?There are plenty of examples. For in-stance, WaterBee is a smart irrigationsystem that collects data on soil con-tent and other environmental factorsfrom a network of wireless sensors toreduce water waste. The system anal-yses the data it collects to selectivelywater dierent plots of land based onneed. Using a prototype, 14 sites in Eu-rope were able to reduce their waterusage on average by 40 percent.

Another example is Z-Trap whichhelps prevent crop damage by usingpheromones to trap insects and thencompile data on the number of dier-ent types of insects in the trap. Z-Trapwirelessly transmits the data, includ-ing its GPS coordinates, allowing farm-ers to view a map of the types of insectsthat have been detected.

The technology has also been put togood use in protecting the woods. In-visible Tracck is a small device that canbe covertly placed in trees in protect-

ed forest areas to help prevent illegallogging. The devices, which are small-er than a deck of cards, alert authori-ties when illegally harvested trees passwithin range of a mobile network.

Do you think IoT has a role to play inmanagement of (smart) cities?The IoT has a large role to play in fu -ture smart cities. For instance, Air Qual-ity Eggs can be found across America,western Europe and east Asia. This is a

community-led air quality sensing net-work that allows anyone to collect veryhigh resolution readings of NO2 and COconcentrations outside of their home.

Another example is HiKoB wirelesssensors that can be embedded in a road

to measure variables such as tempera-ture, humidity, and trac volume. Thisinformation allows road crews to prior-itise maintenance during harsh weath-er conditions. Then we have the USgeological surveys advanced nationalseismic system that uses accelerome-ters and real-time data analysis to mon-itor the structural health of buildings inearthquake prone regions.

One of my favourite examples of theIoT is BigBelly which is a solar-pow-ered trash receptacle and trash com-pactor that alerts the sanitation crewwhen it is full. Boston University hasreduced its pickup from an average of14 to 1.6 times a week. They save timeand energy since its collectors are us-ing less garbage bags and producingless CO2 during trash pickup.

How will system management andgrids of future look like?We at Institute of Electrical and Elec-tronics Engineers (IEEE) expect to seemuch more real-time integration be-tween national intelligent transport in-

frastructures and systems, such as sat-ellite navigation in cars, trac signalcontrol systems, parking information,weather report, bridge de-icing systemand container management system.We also expect integration of variablemessage signs, automatic number platerecognition or speed cameras to moni-tor applications, such as security CCTVsystems and other similar systems.

In future we can expect indestruc-tible in-built road sensors that are

INTERVIEW Dr Kevin Curran, senior member, IEEE

Internet of Things has a largerole to play in smart cities

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8/10/2019 Internet of Things has a large role to play in smart cities

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embedded in the road and turned onduring preventive road constructionmaintenance or in emergencies alert-ing each vehicle to the need to reducespeed or halt. Ultimately, we can ex-pect the road beneath us to becomemore communicative.

What about the role of IoT inimproving infrastructure?Wireless sensor networks are a core as-pect of future smart roads. Monitoring

bridges is one of the more successfulapplications of smart roads to date. InGreece, the 3-km Charilaos Trikoupisbridge has sensors and shortly afteropening they detected abnormal vibra-tions in the cables leading to engineersinstalling additional weight to dampenthe cables. Wireless sensors can also beused to monitor the state of road sur-faces, such as detecting the number ofpotholes in a road. Boston taxis wereused in one such study.

Wireless sensor network (WSN)combined with cameras is becominga common instrument to detect tracows, speed, and continued occupa-tion of the road. Sometimes they are

combined with other sensors, suchas magnetometer or power sensors,for trac detection. The advantagesof WSNs is that they can monitor andevaluate roads automatically and con-tinuously, with little human eort andwork 24/7 even with poor weather con-ditions when there is fog or presence ofdust in the air. They require very lowpower and are very cost eective.

And all this will have a real-timeimpact?

Yes. In general, the rollout of a multi-tude of wireless sensors in roads and invehicles will allow people to accuratelytrack public transport. Other early ini-tiatives link sensors, vehicles and stoplights/signs to control ow. Popularwireless sensor networks include ac-celerometers, strain gauges, anemome-ters, weigh-in-motion devices and tem-perature sensors. The powerful aspectto such systems is that you can inu-ence the trac in real-time as opposedto the historical data analysis approachwhere retrospective decisions were thenorm. In fact, the value of data collect-ed in many instances is reduced dra-matically even minutes after the fact.

Regarding trac lights, again sen-sors can help here. The most commontrac signaling system worldwide isthe timer-based system. This involvesa predened time setting for each roadat an intersection. It works OK for lighttrac but to cater to busier incominglanes, a dynamic trac adaptive systemis proven to work much better. Thesesystems therefore rely on a variety of

sensors to determine which routes re-quire greater priority and ultimatelyright of way to speed trac ows.

Does that also mean there will becommunication between on-boardand on-road devices?Cars are beginning to communicatewith the grid, the cloud and other ve-hicles. It will not be long until cars bydefault will likely keep an activity logfor service and debugging. The crucial

GOVNEXT A Click IntoDigital Governance

PHOTO COURTESY: DR KEVIN CURRAN

8/10/2019 Internet of Things has a large role to play in smart cities

3/364 GovernanceNow | November 1-15, 2014

components of future will be the mo-bile networks, ad hoc (car-to-car) net-works, vehicles to/from road sensorsand satellite communications. We can

expect a signicant portion of the inter-net to be consumed by vehicle commu-nications. In fact, machine-to-machine(M2M) or car-to-car (C2C) communi-cation will play a large role in the fu-ture. For instance, if a crash happens,on-board M2M/C2C technology willautomatically send vital details timeof collision, GPS location, vehicle de-scription, vehicle licence number andregistered owner, etc. to the emer-gency services. This might save crucialmoments in life-threatening situations.

In the future, it is entirely possible thatall vehicles have network connectivity.This will allow them to receive rm-ware and software updates and auto-matically synchronise data. It is onlya small step for much of the telemetrydata associated with that vehicle toalso be uploaded so as to allow a city tooptimise trac management.

But isnt that a matter of concern?Such a level of data sharing has allthe potential for privacy abuse.Invasion of privacy is one real concernas the widespread adoption of smartdevices means that more data is beingcollected on people than before, andany breaches in security will have aknock-on eect on privacy. IoT will sim-ply lead to an increased collection of in-formation on individuals. For instance,collecting information relating to anindividual, that individual may becomemore easily identiable. There is a realpossibility that an individuals habits,location, interests and other person-al information may be easily tracked.

There is sophisticated data mining soft-ware in use which can reveal incredi-ble accurate information on previous-ly anonymous data. This also leadsto concerns relating to identity theft.When it comes to privacy, there maybe, of course, low risk exposure of datasuch as IoT tracking our food and drinkpurchases but we must also be awarethat it could expose more damaging de-tails such as religion.

We may also see a mission creep, in

that much of the data about individu-als could be re-purposed. A lot of thesedeployments will be commercial anddata collected may be sold in ways not

even initially thought of. There is, ofcourse, no agreed protocol for access topublic data between law enforcementauthorities or other intelligence agen-cies. This will be an interesting space towatch for in the days ahead.

What about security threat? Many ofthese inter-connected devices mayend up becoming part of the silentattack network.A fundamental problem with IoT isthe increased exposure to remotehacks. The sheer scale of deploymentof these limited-function embeddeddevices in households and public ar-eas can lead to unique attacks. Thereis also the worry of the domino eectwhere if one device becomes owned,it can easily spread to the remain-der of the cluster. If something like asmart stereo or coee maker is hacked

into, it can be trickier to tell, as, unlikein a laptop or a smartphone, these de-vices often have no visual display. So,technically if they are taking part inan attack, they might not show anysigns of trouble.

One of the successes of IoT to datehas been the introduction of smart me-ters. These are network connected me-ters which broadcast our power usageto the power company. There is, howev-er, a real possibility that unscrupulous

individuals can commit a crime by ma-nipulating the data captured by themeter. A hacker, for instance, couldcompromise a smart meter to nd out

about a home owners peaks of use tolearn when they are likely to be out.On a larger scale, however, there is athreat whereby smart meters whichare connected to smart grids could beattacked leading to complete failure ofthe system. In fact, it is an ideal attackfrom rogue nations or terrorist organi-sations, as once the electricity is cut-othen pretty much every aspect of life inthat region is aected.

In IoT, the installation of smart me-ters controlled from a single head-end

is one of the most critical deploymentsto be properly designed in a securemanner. If an attacker was to compro-mise such a critical infrastructure andsend commands to multiple meters tostop or modify the charging, then thepublic backlash will be signicant. It isserious because people can simply diewhen power gets cut o. This is not athreat scenario dreamed up by futur-ists. We actually know that the Chineseauthorities have done extensive recon-naissance of western energy networks,so it is a real possibility that a nationstate might launch such an attackduring a time of international tension.Of course, indigenous terrorist groupscan also launch similar attacks. Attackscan also be conducted in ransom likemanners as well.

So how do we deal with this?Manufacturers of devices that will con-tribute to IoT need to consider the cor-rect forms of cryptographic algorithmsand modes needed for IoT devices.There is an international ISO/IEC 29192

standard which was devised to imple-ment lightweight cryptography on con-strained devices. There was a need forthis, as many IoT devices have a lim-ited memory size, limited battery lifealong with restricted processors. Tra-ditional heavy cryptography is di-cult to deploy on a typical sensor hencethe deployment of many insecureIoT devices. n

parth@governancenow.com

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In the future we can expectindestructible in-built roadsensors that are embedded

in the road and turnedon during preventive roadconstruction maintenanceor in emergencies, alertingeach vehicle to the need toreduce speed or halt.