A cyber-physical system framework towards smart city and urban computing to aid people with disabilities

摘要

Cities are central to our human culture in the 21st century. Currently, more than half of the world's population lives in cities. Cities throughout the world and their linked infrastructure are rapidly growing. Large urban centers such as New York City, with outdated/over stressed infrastructures, are facing challenging problems when providing essential civil services to their ever growing populations. Such problems are magnified for people with disabilities. Upgrading and building new infrastructure alone is not always an optimal solution. The cyber-physical concept is to bridge the physical space we live in with the cyber space infused with the information collected from an Internet of Things (IoT) embedded in the physical infrastructure. Let us consider people with vision loss or other special needs; they may have difficulties in comprehending or perceiving signals directly in physical space, but they can make these connections in cyber space. These cyber connections and real-time information exchanges will enable and enhance their interactions in the physical space.