SensingBus: Using Bus Lines and Fog Computing for Smart Sensing the City

• Published in: IEEE cloud computing 2018-09, Vol.5 (5), p.58-69
• Main Authors: Cruz Caminha, Pedro Henrique, Ferreira da Silva, Felipe, Goncalves Pacheco, Roberto, de Souza Couto, Rodrigo, Braconnot Velloso, Pedro, Mitre Campista, Miguel Elias, Maciel Kosmalski Costa, Luis Henrique
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Cloud computing; Computer architecture; Computer Science; Data buses; Data storage; Detection; Fog Computing; Infrastructure; Intelligent sensors; Internet of Things; Monitoring; Networking and Internet Architecture; Nodes; Sensors; Smart cities
• ISSN: 2325-6095; 2325-6095; 2372-2568
• DOI: 10.1109/MCC.2018.053711667

Collecting data is an important task to build smart cities. This work proposes SensingBus, a system to collect data from sensors carried by urban buses. Using buses to move sensors allows each node to cover a wider area, at a negligible cost. SensingBus is based on a three-level architecture. At the first level, sensing nodes collect and send data to the second level, consisting of fog nodes. The fog nodes pre-process and deliver data to the third level, the cloud infrastructure, which stores and makes data externally available. The fog infrastructure, on the other hand, discards defective data, compresses information, and provides secure access points between fog and cloud. To validate SensingBus, we build a prototype and perform experiments to stress the fog nodes. We verify that each one can accommodate at least 20 simultaneous sensing nodes, an adequate number to sense a city such as Rio de Janeiro.