Fog Computing Platforms for Smart City Applications: A Survey

Abstract

Emerging IoT applications with stringent requirements on latency and data processing have posed many challenges to cloud-centric platforms for Smart Cities. Recently, Fog Computing has been advocated as a promising approach to support such new applications and handle the increasing volume of IoT data and devices. The Fog Computing paradigm is characterized by a horizontal system-level architecture where devices close to end-users and IoT devices are used for processing, storage, and networking functions. Fog Computing platforms aim to facilitate the development of applications and systems for Smart Cities by providing services and abstractions designed to integrate data from IoT devices and various information systems deployed in the city. Despite the potential of the Fog Computing paradigm, the literature still lacks a broad, comprehensive overview of what has been investigated on the use of such paradigm in platforms for Smart Cities and open issues to be addressed in future research and development. In this paper, a systematic mapping study was performed and we present a comprehensive understanding of the use of the Fog Computing paradigm in Smart Cities platforms, providing an overview of the current state of research on this topic, and identifying important gaps in the existing approaches and promising research directions.