Abstract

The continuous growth of the urban population has generated a drastic expansion of our cities. Nowadays, indeed, more than 50 % of the world’s population is urban, and they forecast that it will reach 70 % by 2050. Therefore, cities need to be ready to accommodate this huge amount of citizens and to face new challenges (e.g., traffic congestion, air pollution, waste management, etc.). The concept of cyber-physical systems, as integration of computation and physical processes, can help toward the realization of real smart cities capable to ensure sustainability and efficiency. To this purpose, this chapter investigates the cyber-physical system (CPS) and their cyber-physical object (CPO) as key units, in the context of a smart city concept. We survey the smart city vision, providing information on the main requirements, the open challenges, and highlighting the benefits; we also browse the European Commission initiatives for smart cities and some pilot projects that are in development.