a Roadmap for the Internet of Things in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park (aRIoT)

The ongoing research collaboration between PETRAS partners and the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) has led to a number of successful projects in the Internet of Things (IoT) domain, including, as part of PETRAS, Tales of the Park (EPSRC/Intel); the Nature Smart Cities bat monitoring project (UCL/Intel); and ongoing mobilities research underway at UCL Computer Science. However, one of the most pressing challenges in this work has been in finding ways to align research objectives with Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park (“the Park”) business needs. Moreover, as a public sector organisation with a diverse range of responsibilities and stakeholders, the LLDC is uniquely placed to identify and lead on security and privacy best practices in this emerging field. This is further underlined by being part of the recently launched (24/1/18) Listening to London project by the Mayor of London’s Smart London Board, aimed at creating a road map for IoT and Smart in London – the LLDC lead and the Co-I are members of the board. This activity is aimed to play a core role in creating a roadmap for IoT in public places.

This project therefore aims to deepen the existing links between the PETRAS network, UCL, the LLDC, the GLA and the Ordnance Survey by conducting a wide-ranging review of what has facilitated research collaboration between these organisations and exploring the potential for IoT. These findings will be consolidated into a public-facing document, via the PETRAS Little Book Series, identifying future areas of activity in the IoT space (including SME input), and codifying cutting-edge research about the privacy implications of IoT technologies into a digital ‘bill of rights’ to guide future practice in this area, which LLDC would be well placed to disseminate through their profile and capacity to act as leaders in this sector.

Moreover, through inviting participation from members of the PETRAS network, in particular the Displays and Sensors on Smart Campuses team led by Nigel Davies (Lancaster) and Klaus Moessner (Surrey), the project will explore opportunities for sharing best practice around ethics, privacy, and security between PETRAS and the partner organisations. On the basis of this learning we would then expect to move forward to develop a technical specification and plan for an IoT demonstrator in the Park addressing aspects of the research areas identified in the roadmap document, for which further funding from PETRAS will be sought.