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IoT Technologies in Smart Cities: Challenges and Sensor Applications

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

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2026 | Viewed by 1110

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Engineering and Architecture, University of Parma, Parco Area delle Scienze, 181/A, 43124 Parma, Italy
Interests: Internet of Things; smart agriculture; smart cities; big stream; data integration
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The rapid growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm has positioned it as a cornerstone for the development of modern smart cities. By enabling seamless connectivity between sensors, devices, and platforms, IoT provides significant support for applications in urban mobility, environmental monitoring, public safety, energy management, and services to citizens and tourists. With cities aiming to become more sustainable, resilient, and people-centric, the practical deployment of IoT solutions is essential to transform data into actionable intelligence.

This Special Issue aims to bring together recent advances, practical implementations, and innovative methodologies that highlight applications of IoT technologies in smart city contexts. 

We welcome contributions addressing real-world deployments, testbeds, and experimental studies, as well as interdisciplinary approaches combining IoT with artificial intelligence, edge/fog computing, 5G/6G connectivity, and cybersecurity.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • IoT-based environmental and air quality monitoring;
  • Intelligent transportation and mobility systems;
  • Energy-efficient buildings and smart grids;
  • Tourism-oriented suggestion algorithms supported by IoT;
  • Public safety, surveillance, and emergency response;
  • Interoperability, standardization, and scalability challenges;
  • Data analytics, edge AI, and predictive maintenance in urban IoT;
  • Privacy, trust, and security in smart city IoT applications.

Dr. Laura Belli
Dr. Luca Davoli
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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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.

Keywords

  • Internet of Things
  • smart city
  • data integration
  • services
  • data analysis
  • urban mobility

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

26 pages, 21948 KB  
Article
AI-Assisted Vision Alarming System for Blind and Vision- Impaired People
by Le Chung Tran, Sinh Khai Ly, Rhys Blacklidge, Jonathan Shemmell, Nathan Difford, Daniel Edward Cox and Theresa Harada
Sensors 2026, 26(10), 2929; https://doi.org/10.3390/s26102929 - 7 May 2026
Viewed by 765
Abstract
Navigating through everyday environments, like walking down a sidewalk, which many people often take for granted, is a difficult task for millions of people with vision impairments since it involves sophisticated object detection, depth perception, and situational awareness, all working seamlessly to guide [...] Read more.
Navigating through everyday environments, like walking down a sidewalk, which many people often take for granted, is a difficult task for millions of people with vision impairments since it involves sophisticated object detection, depth perception, and situational awareness, all working seamlessly to guide a person through complex surroundings. Many current assistive devices for vision-impaired people are either expensive, information-overabundant, or missing critical information. This paper details our Vision Alarming System (VAS), which can improve the safety for blind and vision-impaired people by providing awareness of both positions and nature of nearby obstacles; thus, assisting users to make decisions to avoid collisions, reduce accidents and casualties, while enhance their experience, independence, and confidence when participating in traffic. VAS is an Artificial Intelligence/Internet-of-Things (AI/IoT)—powered system developed utilizing the cutting-edge Raspberry Pi 5, a Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) sensor, and an AI depth camera, operating as different containers in a Docker architecture, and leveraging a Robotic Operating System 2 (ROS 2) backbone. VAS communicates the obstacle detections to users via Bluetooth interface, using the neural Text-To-Speech (TTS) system, namely, Piper, and the Sound eXchange (SoX) technologies. Our proof-of-concept system proves that VAS can be a standalone, open-source, extremely low cost, low power consumption assistive device which can synergistically utilize the cutting-edge AI/IoT technologies to provide blind and vision-impaired users with an appropriate amount of critical information about their surrounding environments. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue IoT Technologies in Smart Cities: Challenges and Sensor Applications)
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