European-Japanese Collaboration Focuses on 'Cloud of Things' To Support Smart Cities

July 23, 2013. CEA-Leti today announced that a group of European and Japanese companies, research institutes, universities, and cities will work together in the ClouT project to deliver ways for cities to leverage the Internet of things (IoT) and cloud computing

ClouT, which stands for “cloud of things,” will develop infrastructure, services, tools, and applications for municipalities and their various stakeholders—including citizens, service developers, and application integrators—to create, deploy, and manage user-centric applications that capitalize on the latest advances in IoT and cloud computing.

The IoT allows users to connect “everything” (sensors, objects, actuators, mobile phones, servers, etc.) and gather and share information in real-time from the physical environment. Cloud computing lets users process, store, and access information with virtually unlimited processing and storage capacity. ClouT will integrate the latest advances in these domains and, with its user-centric approach, allow end users in cities to create their own cloud services and share them with other citizens.

Target applications include enhanced public transportation, increased citizen participation through the use of mobile devices to photograph and record situations of interest to city administrators, safety management, city-event monitoring, and emergency management. The project, which is coordinated in Europe by Leti, includes nine industrial and research partners and four cities: Santander, Spain; Genoa, Italy; Fujisawa, Japan; and Mitaka, Japan. The applications will be validated in those cities via field trials with citizens.

By combining EU and Japanese resources, the three-year, nearly €4 million project is designed to create an on-going synergy for smart-city initiatives between Europe and Japan.

In addition to Leti and the four cities, ClouT participants include, from Europe, the University of Cantabria, Engineering, and ST Microelectronics. Participants from Japan include NTT East (coordinator), NTT R&D, Keio University, Panasonic, and the National Institute of Informatics.

ClouT is jointly funded by the 7th Framework Programme of the European Commission and by the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) of Japan.

See related article, “Despite criticism, smart-city technologies take off.”