Achieving sustainability by rectifying challenges in IoT based smart cities

It has become mandatory for traditional cities to be converted into smart cities for the benefit of giving citizens a better lifestyle. The large amounts of people migrating towards smart cities has increased the requirements of a sustainable smart city with the assistance of cloud-based Internet of Things (IoT) devices such as active sensors and smartphones. When implementing these cloud applications that are IoT-based, there are several challenges including security and privacy of data in the devices, and satisfaction with the smart services provided. Previous research done revealed that the primary challenge was privacy and security, while current research emphasizes on the security of the smart devices, and the awareness and satisfaction of customers with them. In this paper, we used a qualitative and quantitative approach to attain sustainability. Under the qualitative analysis, we proposed a 5-Layer Smart City framework based on IoT, making use of various technologies such as fog computing, Artificial Intelligence, edge computing, Machine Learning, actuators, cloud computing, Deep Learning, sensors, etc. In the quantitative analysis, we carried out a smart city survey to gather knowledge about the citizens’ level of satisfaction and awareness. The study was carried out on a minimal scale because of limited resources and time; however, it still provides a possible solution to the issues encountered