Page 33 - Redefining smart city platforms: Setting the stage for Minimal Interoperability Mechanisms - A U4SSC deliverable on city platforms

available to it, and the particular challenges and opportunities facing it. The core of any Reference
Architecture is a diagram that displays those capabilities.

There are many different Smart City Reference Architectures that have been developed by many
different organizations. The differences related to which aspects of the process the organization
developing it consider most important.

For instance, the diagram providing an overview of the reference architecture developed by ITU
Study Group 20 on IoT, Smart Cities and Communities, is highlighted in Figure 5. It showcases the
following layers:

• Sensing layer: It consists of terminal nodes and capillary networks. In this context, terminals
include sensors, transducers, actuators, cameras, RFID tags, etc – all of which are capable of
sensing the physical world.

• Network layer: This layer includes the telecommunication networks for data processing and
application support.
• Data and support layer: This layer includes servers to support the processing of data by applying
different statistical models.

• Application layer: The application layer comprises the applications and services that deliver
the smart city-based services.

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