Deploying unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarms in delivery systems are still in its infancy with regard to the technology, safety, and aviation rules and regulations. Optimal use of UAVs in dynamic environments is important in many aspects, e.g., increasing efficacy and reducing the air traffic, resulting in a safer environment, and it requires new techniques and robust approaches based on the capabilities of UAVs and constraints. This paper analyzes several delivery schemes within a platform, such as delivery with and without using air highways and delivery using a hybrid scheme along with several delivery methods (i.e., optimal, premium, and first-in first-out) to explore the use of UAV swarms as part of the logistics operations. In this platform, a dimension reduction technique, ''dynamic multiple assignments in multidimensional space,'' and several other new techniques along with Hungarian and cross-entropy Monte Carlo techniques are forged together to assign tasks and plan 3D routes dynamically. This particular approach is performed in such a way that UAV swarms in several warehouses are deployed optimally given the delivery scheme, method, and constraints. Several scenarios are tested on the simulator using small and big data sets. The results show that the distribution and the characteristics of data sets and constraints affect the decision on choosing the optimal delivery scheme and the method. The findings are expected to guide the aviation authorities in their decisions before dictating rules and regulations regarding effective, efficient, and safe use of UAVs. Furthermore, the companies that produce UAVs are going to take the demonstrated results into account for their functional design of UAVs along with other companies that aim to deliver their products using UAVs. Additionally, private industries, logistics operators, and municipalities are expected to benefit from the potential adoption of the simulator in strategic decisions before embarking on the practical implementation of UAV delivery systems.
A shared agreed-upon definition of ''smart city'' (SC) is not available and there is no ''best formula'' to follow in transforming each and every city into SC. In a broader inclusive definition, it can be described as an opportunistic concept that enhances harmony between the lives and the environment around those lives perpetually in a city by harnessing the smart technology enabling a comfortable and convenient living ecosystem paving the way towards smarter countries and the smarter planet. SCs are being implemented to combine governors, organisations, institutions, citizens, environment, and emerging technologies in a highly synergistic synchronised ecosystem in order to increase the quality of life (QoL) and enable a more sustainable future for urban life with increasing natural resource constraints. In this study, we analyse how to develop citizen-and resource-centric smarter cities based on the recent SC development initiatives with the successful use cases, future SC development plans, and many other particular SC development solutions. The main features of SC are presented in a framework fuelled by recent technological advancement, particular city requirements and dynamics. This framework-TCitySmartF 1) aims to aspire a platform that seamlessly forges engineering and technology solutions with social dynamics in a new philosophical city automation concept-socio-technical transitions, 2) incorporates many smart evolving components, best practices, and contemporary solutions into a coherent synergistic SC topology, 3) unfolds current and future opportunities in order to adopt smarter, safer and more sustainable urban environments, and 4) demonstrates a variety of insights and orchestrational directions for local governors and private sector about how to transform cities into smarter cities from the technological, social, economic and environmental point of view, particularly by both putting residents and urban dynamics at the forefront of the development with participatory planning and interaction for the robust community-and citizen-tailored services. The framework developed in this paper is aimed to be incorporated into the real-world SC development projects in Lancashire, UK. INDEX TERMS Smart city, crowdsourcing, Internet of Everything (IoE), cloud, edge/fog/MEC, smart planet, IoT.
The movie -The Matrix (1999) -boosted our imagination about how further we can be immersed within the cyber world, i.e., how further the cyber world can be indistinguishable from the real world. Nobody, including the creators, had expected that the aspirational fictional virtual worlds such as ''ActiveWorlds (1995)'' and ''Second Life (2003)'' would impact the way of experiencing our real urban environments with many urban experiences embedded into a rich featured 3D environment. Are we going to stay as ourselves while existing in a mirror world? Are the fabricated, created imaginary worlds becoming a part of real worlds or vice versa? The recent once-in-a-lifetime pandemic has confirmed the importance of location and time-independent Digital Twins (DTs) (i.e., virtual scale models) of cities and their automated services which can provide everybody with equity and accessibility. This study analyses how the metaverse (3D elevation of linear Internet), that aims to build high-fidelity virtual worlds with which to interact with, can be engaged within the Smart City (SC) ecosystem with high immersive Quality of Experiences (QoE) leading to increased Quality of Life (QoL). An urban metaverse ecosystem framework -MetaOmniCityis designed to demonstrate a variety of insights and orchestrational directions for policymakers, city planners and all other stakeholders about how to transform data-driven SCs with DTs into virtually inhabitable cities with a network of shared urban experiences from a metaverse point of view. MetaOmniCity, allowing the metaversification of cities with granular virtual societies, i.e., MetaSocieties, and eliminating the boundaries between the real world and their virtual counterparts can be shaped to the particular requirements and features of cities. Urban metaverse shared worlds, an extension of residents and urban society, where the virtual and the physically real blend and are more organically integrated, would impact urban ways of living significantly with many practical implementations. This would open doors for potential businesses with tremendous global economic value by democratising skills/assets within an urban environment, paving the way for immersive globalisation with the bigger and richer metaverse of Country (MoC) and metaverse of World (MoW) being an immersive DT of the broader universe with tangibly connected cities. MetaOmniCity is expected to accelerate the building, deployment, and adoption of immersive urban metaverse networks for citizens to interface with as an extension of real social and individual experiences.INDEX TERMS Metaverse, smart city (SC), digital twins (DTs), avatars, blockchain, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), web 3.0, web3.
The recent advances in cyber-physical domains, cloud, cloudlet, and edge platforms along with the evolving Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques, big data analytics, and cutting-edge wireless communication technologies within the Industry 4.0 (4IR) are urging mechatronics designers, practitioners, and educators to further review the ways in which mechatronics systems are perceived, designed, manufactured, and advanced. Within this scope, we introduce the service-oriented cyber-physical advanced mechatronics systems (AMSs) along with current and future challenges. The objective in AMSs is to create remarkably intelligent autonomous products by 1) forging effective sensing, self-learning, Wisdom as a Service (WaaS), Information as a Service (InaaS), precise decision making, and actuation using effective locationindependent monitoring, control and management techniques with products and 2) maintaining a competitive edge through better product performances via immediate and continuous learning, while the products are being used by customers and are being produced in factories within the cycle of Automation of Everything (AoE). With the advanced wireless communication techniques and improved battery technologies, the AMSs are capable of getting independent and working with other massive AMSs to construct robust, customizable, energy-efficient, autonomous, intelligent, and immersive platforms. In this regard, rather than providing technological details, this paper implements philosophical insights into 1) how mechatronics systems are being transformed into AMSs; 2) how robust AMSs can be developed by both exploiting the wisdom created within cyber-physical smart domains in the edge and cloud platforms and incorporating all the stakeholders with diverse objectives into all phases of the product life-cycle; and 3) what essential common features AMSs should acquire to increase the efficacy of products and prolong their product life. Against this background, an AMS development framework is proposed in order to contextualize all the necessary phases of AMS development and direct all stakeholders to rivet high-quality products and services within AoE. INDEX TERMS Advanced mechatronics systems, Wisdom as a Service (WaaS), Information as a Service (InaaS), Industry 4.0 (4IR), cyber-physical domains, cloud and edge/fog platforms, Automation of Everything (AoE).
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