Heterogeneous wireless networks for smart cities

In the near future, a world of smart cities is envisioned in which many devices equipped with sensors and communication interfaces can be used to collect and share data in order to derive maps or infer information on some parameter of interest. Wireless technologies are enabling this smart city paradigms, where many items are networked for the growth of society. This scenario opens new challenges to wireless network designers, with new performance metrics, coverage and privacy needs, as well as the need for a tighter integration of different networks. This is the fundamental concept of Heterogeneous Networks. Enclosing humans in the loop, through crowdsensing techniques, will dramatically increase the amount of data available for the mapping process, with obvious benefits in terms of the resulting accuracy. On the other hand, the huge amount of data generated represents also a challenge that, along with the irregular, uncontrollable, spatial distribution of measurements represent serious challenges to be addressed. Another important aspect of smart cities scenarios is represented by vehicular networks. Several technologies have been proposed to address such application. Among the others, an interesting solution is provided by Visible Light Communications (VLC). Based on the use of the light emission diodes (LEDs) that are already available on the majority of vehicles, VLC would enable short range communication in large, unlicensed, and uncongested bands with limited costs. In the framework of smart cities scenarios, my research activity aimed at formulating and solving some of the issues arising from the envisioned challenging services, with both analytical and simulation-based approaches.