Need for Interoperability to Enable Seamless Information Exchanges in Smart and Sustainable Urban Systems

Abstract

Over the last few decades, the built environment and the architecture, engineering, construction, and operation (AECO) industry have grown in the amount of computer software, technologies, and automation to help improve all facets of the industry. This new era of smart and sustainable urban systems is enabling transformative change in the way urban communities are interacting among themselves and with the built environment to become more sustainable and resilient to meet the demands of the growing urban population. Interoperability has been shown to be a major barrier for the seamless transfer of information between the heterogeneous landscape of the internet of things (IoT) and smart cities. In order to facilitate interoperability of these systems, this paper conducts a holistic review of principles, methods, and requirements needed to achieve interoperability of smart and sustainable urban systems. Significantly, the use of ontologies, namely the semantic web, has been shown to be the most promising method to enable interoperability. Existing ontologies and frameworks that can enable smart and sustainable urban systems in the scope of the AECO industry are presented. Finally, various challenges revealed during the qualitative review are discussed to promote research opportunities.