An IoT Smart Infrastructure for S. Domenico Church in Matera’s “Sassi’’: A Multiscale Perspective to Built Heritage Conservation

Abstract

Architectural heritage is perhaps the most important marker of the Italian and European landscapes. Over the last decades, its strategic relevance for local economic development has led to prioritize tourism-oriented promotion objectives. Therefore, new light has been thrown on once unknown resources that have thus received the attention of tourists interested in new visit experiences. To this end, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have delivered a crucial support mainly in terms of public attraction and creation of new cultural offers. However, new urgent challenges now face tangible heritage, whose physical existence is jeopardized through extreme events and poor maintenance. Unexpected intense visit flows represent in themselves a further threat for sensitive heritages. ICTs have then to cope with more complex conservation tasks and the Internet of Things (IoT) can facilitate appropriate solutions. The paper presents a smart sensor-based infrastructure for the structural monitoring of S. Domenico Church in Matera, an emblematic city for the concerns described, which also highlighted the need for a wider conservation concept also embracing context and fruition issues. The article introduces the case study and its delicate environment, and the technological background of heritage monitoring solutions; the proposed IoT infrastructure is then described, discussing its potentialities and IoT contribution to creating more holistic and multiscale perspectives to heritage conservation.

Bibliometric and visualized review of smart tourism research

“…Third, 5G makes the "Internet of Everything" possible. Users can feel the support of smart tourism technology in all aspects of travel, including designated travel plans, tourist transportation, and travel safety, thus considerably improving time efficiency and convenience (Lerario & Varasano, 2020). For instance, smart mobility can not only provide real-time information about the transportation network to end user Internet service systems, but can also provide reliable and unlimited travel decision support by lending virtual personal assistants and chatbots to provide answers in real time, while the visitor is on the move (Tung et al, 2019).…”

Smart Heritage for Urban Sustainability: A Review of Current Definitions and Future Developments

“…It is also a beneficial exploration of organically combining art, technology, and humanities. According to Lerario and Varasano (2020), smartness in architectural heritage should be regarded as a holistic approach that not only brings the systematic opportunity with PhD Candidate Heng Song , Professor Gehan Selim 181 monitoring and protecting function into heritage but also links heritage with urban data processing, environmental monitoring, economic growth, and public services. Cultural heritage smartness is highly likely to affect the promotion of social cohesion and push innovation, especially when combined with smart city initiatives (Borda & Bowen, 2017).…”

Projections of IoT Applications in Colombia Using 5G Wireless Networks

“…In this regard, and considering that the tourism industry requires a large amount of information and is increasingly dependent on ICT [138], it is necessary to collect information at all stages of a tourist trip or event, so that appropriate actions can be taken to satisfy customers and improve the competitiveness of this sector. The collection of information through IoT systems would help develop practical applications for the benefit of users such as guided tours, smart shopping, or efficient travel management [138,139], as well as to the monitoring of architectural works in historic buildings with at-risk infrastructure [140]. It would also allow for the implementation of algorithms for predicting user behavior as proposed in [141], or be complemented with big data tools so that tourists have a personalized experience and are able to make decisions about their trips [142,143].…”