Cyber Physical Systems and Body Area Sensor Networks in Smart Cities

The increasing pervasiveness of ICT and the development of the Internet of Things (IoT) will allow the spread of the often time and safety-critical embedded Cyber Physical Systems (CPS). The new challenge will be to design, programme and implement highly distributed and connected digital technologies. These technologies will be embedded in a multitude of increasingly autonomous physical systems with various dynamics and satisfying multiple critical constraints including cost, security, safety, power efficiency, high performance, and size. This combination of various cyber-physical systems gives rise to emergent properties and unpredictable behaviours. In the future world of Cyber Physical Systems, a significant number of devices connected to the physical world will be able to exchange data with each other, access web services, and interact with people. Thanks to the development of the IoT and of high speed broadband, this embedded world will then meet the internet world and the physical world will meet the cyber world. The purpose of this paper is to give a comprehensive view on Cyber-Physical Systems and Body Area Sensor Networks (BASNs) focusing on the convergence of these technologies and research thrusts that underpin 'Smart Cities' and the Internet of Things concepts. Moreover as a practical example of CPS and BASN, a research project that aims at the development of a Smart and Safe Wearable System for Hand Pattern Recognition is presented. This project has been approved for funding by the Italian Ministry for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation in the framework of the Scientific and Technological Cooperation Agreement between Italy and USA.