IoT Solution for Smart Cities’ Pollution Monitoring and the Security Challenges

Air pollution is a major factor in global heating and an increasing focus is centered on solving this problem. Urban communities take advantage of Information Technology (IT) and communications technologies in order to improve the control of environmental emissions and sound pollution. The aim is to mitigate health threatening risks and to raise awareness in relation to the effects of air pollution exposure. This paper investigates the key issues of a real-time pollution monitoring system, including the sensors, Internet of Things (IoT) communication protocols, and acquisition and transmission of data through communication channels, as well as data security and consistency. Security is a major focus in the proposed IoT solution. All other components of the system revolve around security. The bill of the materials and communications protocols necessary for the designing, development, and deployment of the IoT solution are part of this paper, as well as the security challenges. The paper’s proof of concept (PoC) addresses IoT security challenges within the communication channels between IoT gateways and the cloud infrastructure where data are transmitted to. The security implementations adhere to existing guidelines, best practices, and standards, ensuring a reliable and robust solution. In addition, the solution is able to interpret and analyze the collected data by using predictive analytics to create pollution maps. Those maps are used to implement real-time countermeasures, such as traffic diversion in a major city, to reduce concentrations of air pollutants by using existing data collected over a year. Once integrated with traffic management systems—cameras monitoring and traffic lights—this solution would reduce vehicle pollution by dynamically offering alternate routes or even enforcing re-routing when pollution thresholds are reached.