Name and tittle: Dr. Hesham Elsayed, Associate Prof.

Project Title: Exploring IoT Frontiers with Drones powered by Edge Computing (DEC) for Smart Urban Transportation

Abstract:

Initially, challenges on smart cities and smart grids were frequently addressed by cloud computing services. Cloud-based platforms had always been instrumental in reducing the complexities on networks and provide cost-effective solutions. Later, as Internet of Things (IoT) devices/sensors and applications emerged, the traditional cloud computing had to face robust challenges. Cloud data centers could not keep pace with the processing/storage demands of millions of distributed IoT sensors/devices. The deterioration of such infrastructure-based Quality of Service (QoS) and high latency led to the evolution of Edge Computing (EC) services.

Edge Computing eases geographical proximity of end-users/devices and the delays from data transmission over large round-trips got reduced considerably. In EC, computations are done at the edge of the network. Computing power and storage is being inserted into the network edge to enhance availability and reduce transit time. The lower latency helps traffic management. Smart traffic management is very sensitive to latency as vehicles travel at varying speeds.

The fast movement of vehicles require ultra-fast processing and effective resource utilization to avoid serious transportation related issues in smart urban transportation systems. Thus, EC enables localized distributed computing, which generated a buzz in the research domain. Proliferation of IoT devices/sensors and its distribution in millions triggered the need for edge computing, while ease of mobility triggered us to step into drones powered with EC services.