The activities of this area of research focus on two main areas: Smart Cities (SC) and Smart Mobility (SM), both highly topical and with many research directions that involve a large part of the DEIB researchers.
In particular, SC encompasses the diverse and multidisciplinary skills of the Department that focus on the development of advanced methodological and technological solutions based on ICT that make it possible to develop urban areas resilient, inclusive and sustainable.
Still in the SC context, but not only, the SM research area focuses on technologies, strategies and systems conceived, designed and developed to improve and innovate personal mobility, especially in urban and metropolitan contexts, widely using digital tools and digital technologies for vehicles, in particular enabling technologies for electric and autonomous vehicles.
In both areas, digital methodologies and technologies contribute substantially to the integrated and intelligent management of large urban realities and the development of innovative solutions for personal mobility in urban, extra-urban and multi-modal contexts. For this purpose, huge amounts of data (mostly personal) coming from heterogeneous and distributed sources must be collected and processed, with consequent disciplinary challenges that involve all the Department's skills.
In the SC area, the DEIB department intends to consolidate its role also in the future 6G scenario, which will see the interoperability of communication systems on drones, satellites and optical fibers, focusing on resilience to disasters and on data privacy issues.
In the SM context, the DEIB department intends to oversee various areas: vehicle technologies (autonomous, connected, electric vehicles); infrastructure (traffic light networks, distributed sensors, etc.); connectivity (in particular 5G and the B5G evolution), geolocation and cybersecurity; interfacing (typically through applications on personal devices) between the user and the mobility systems; of data-analytics (in particular in cloud-computing) for the prediction and dynamic optimization of mobility resources.
Expected impact on sustainable development goals in the areas: SDG1, SDG3, SDG4, SDG5, SDG6, SDG7, SDG10, SDG11 and SDG13.