A Smart Lighting Mesh-Type Network as a Backbone Infrastructure for IoT Energy Metering Development for Smart Cities

With the objective of reducing energy consumption in city environments, there is a need to replace outdated street lighting systems that still rely on the old high-pressure sodium technology for more efficient lighting devices. The inefficiency is caused by the lack of feedback regarding the status of the lamp, the power being drawn from the low-voltage distribution network, and the lack of control over the intensity. The progressive replacement of lighting devices offers a unique opportunity of using individual lighting controllers as access points in a larger smart city IoT backbone infrastructure. Smart metering solutions require a proper network infrastructure, which is normally too costly to deploy from scratch and could even cause a take-back effect, thus nullifying the benefits of energy monitoring. Previously proposed solutions for a smart city's network include using a mesh-type network based on Zigbee or point-to-point LoRAWAN-based solutions, which could not be entirely suitable for a noisy environment like a smart city. This research paper proposes an optimal IoT solution for smart cities that uses IEEE 802.15.4 6LoWPAN mesh networks with a suitable routing proto-col to achieve low latency and high energy efficiency. This solution is ideal for smart metering applications that require near-real-time data processing with a small to moderate data rate. This paper also proposes using an open-source modulation technique to reduce initial deployment costs and increase interoperability. The proposed solution provides a reliable, efficient, and cost-effective approach to modernizing street lighting systems in smart cities and a backbone infrastructure.