Instrumentation & Measurement Magazine 24-3 - 68

Internet of Things (IoT) in Canadian
Smart Cities: An Overview
Nan Xie and Henry Leung

T

he term " Internet of Things " (IoT) refers to the use
of intelligently connected devices and systems to leverage measurement data gathered by embedded
sensors and actuators in machines and other physical objects.
Amid the COVID-19 crisis, IoT accounts for more than 8 billion connected devices today, and this number will continue to
grow and reach 41 billion by 2027 with a projected market size
of US $1 trillion [1], [2].
Given that the annual Instrumentation and Measurement
(I&M) Around the World issue of the 2021 IEEE Instrumentation & Measurement Magazine covers IEEE Region 7 (Canada),
we focus on the I&M aspects of IoT in smart city initiatives
across Canada. In this context, IoT in a smart city has attracted
growing interest in the I&M field [3]-[5], and many vertical applications were studied, including Intelligent Transportation
System (ITS), Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) [6], traffic
light management, congestion management, smart water meters and power grids [7], [8], vehicle tracking and Automatic
Vehicle Location (AVL) solutions, irrigation system management [9], air quality and environment monitoring [10], waste
and recycling bin management using RFID, and smart parking
management, etc.
Our goal is to provide a state-of-the-art review of IoT
adoption and trend in Canadian cities and identify unique
challenges and opportunities for the IoT smart city to the I&M
research community. We examine key IoT components impacting Canadian cities, including wireless network infrastructure,
sensor devices, and cyber security, and provide a survey of major IoT standards for communications and data transmissions.
A battery-powered acoustic sensor and practical IoT cyber security study used by the City of Calgary are also illustrated as
real-life examples for readers' reference.

IoT Development in Canadian Cities
Canada is one of the few countries around the world leading the adoption of smart city technologies [11]. Toronto, the
Ontario capital city is within the top 10 smartest cities in the
world according to 2018's Motion Index, the IESE Cities report that ranks 165 global cities based on economic and social
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indicators. In Canadian Prairies, Calgary's early implementation of city-wide LoRaWAN network infrastructure for IoT
development has earned the 2019 Smart 50 Award presented
by Smart Cities Connect and US Ignite [12].
In 2018, Infrastructure Canada issued a Smart Cities Challenge for " communicates, large and small, to come forward
with their best ideas to improve the quality of life of their residents through innovation, data, and technology " [13]. The
challenge promised up to CA$ 50 Million for the winner. From
Montreal's winning proposal of building a digital platform to
improve mobility experience and enhance physical access to
food system [14], to Winnipeg's Smart Sensor Network to deploy broad arrays of IoT sensors [15], to Edmonton's health
care system for vulnerability population [16], most of the
smart cities proposals will rely on IoT as an underlying technology. IoT has become the fundamental requirement and
prerequisite for interconnected, efficient urban spaces in most
of the Canadian municipal officers' smart cities blueprints.
The City of Toronto has started piloting a range of IoT proposals in its Urban Pilot program, also known as UPPlift, with
several industry partners since 2018. One of the largest smart
lighting projects in North America is underway in Montreal
to create a scalable IoT wireless infrastructure initially managing over 135,000 fixtures in addition to other Smart City
sensors and actuators. In their application to the Smart Cities
Challenge, the City of Vancouver indicates " ...We anticipate
partnership with software and Internet of Things (IoT) vendors, telecommunications suppliers, and advanced data,
sensor, device, and hardware providers... " In Alberta, the
City of Calgary has taken a unique approach to enable IoT initiatives by building an IoT infrastructure with near city-wide
coverage [12]. In Edmonton, the University of Alberta built a
scalable system for an urban IoT environment for traffic monitoring and routing based on open source technologies and
publicly available data [17]. Smaller municipalities cross Canada are also implementing IoT initiatives to jumpstart their
digital transformation. For example, the City of Fredericton,
New Brunswick has recently launched a living lab approach
to pilot smart water metering, intelligent parking and flood

IEEE Instrumentation & Measurement Magazine	
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May 2021
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