Cities nowadays face complex challenges to meet objectives regarding socio-economic development and quality of life. The concept of "smart cities" is a response to these challenges. This paper explores "smart cities" as environments of open and user-driven innovation for experimenting and validating Future Internet-enabled services. Based on an analysis of the current landscape of smart city pilot programmes, Future Internet experimentally-driven research and projects in the domain of Living Labs, common resources regarding research and innovation can be identified that can be shared in open innovation environments. Effectively sharing these common resources for the purpose of establishing urban and regional innovation ecosystems requires sustainable partnerships and cooperation strategies among the main stakeholders.

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Smart cities and the future internet: towards cooperation frameworks for open innovation

Cognitive radio (CR) is the enabling technology for supporting dynamic spectrum access: the policy that addresses the spectrum scarcity problem that is encountered in many countries. Thus, CR is widely regarded as one of the most promising technologies for future wireless communications. To make radios and wireless networks truly cognitive, however, is by no means a simple task, and it requires collaborative effort from various research communities, including communications theory, networking engineering, signal processing, game theory, software-hardware joint design, and reconfigurable antenna and radio-frequency design. In this paper, we provide a systematic overview on CR networking and communications by looking at the key functions of the physical (PHY), medium access control (MAC), and network layers involved in a CR design and how these layers are crossly related. In particular, for the PHY layer, we will address signal processing techniques for spectrum sensing, cooperative spectrum sensing, and transceiver design for cognitive spectrum access. For the MAC layer, we review sensing scheduling schemes, sensing-access tradeoff design, spectrum-aware access MAC, and CR MAC protocols. In the network layer, cognitive radio network (CRN) tomography, spectrum-aware routing, and quality-of-service (QoS) control will be addressed. Emerging CRNs that are actively developed by various standardization committees and spectrum-sharing economics will also be reviewed. Finally, we point out several open questions and challenges that are related to the CRN design.

Cognitive radio networking and communications: an overview

Living Labs have received limited attention in the literature despite their diffusion throughout Europe and recent interest from policy makers. This limited attention is linked to the newness of the phenomenon, the high heterogeneity of cases and the consequent lack of definitions and acknowledged frameworks for scholarly analyses. In this work, we argue that the originality of the Living Lab phenomenon resides in the introduction of a new methodology. Using an analysis of the literature and case studies, we propose a new definition, position this methodology among other design methodologies and highlight its peculiarities. We underline the co-creative potentialities, the awareness of users and the real-life settings. Furthermore, our case-based research allows us to identify four different specifications for this methodology, and therefore four different types of Living Labs, based on the openness of the user involvement and the adopted platform technology.

/pdf/living-lab-a-methodology-between-user-centred-design-and-3o380hnzb6.pdf

Living Lab: A Methodology between User‐Centred Design and Participatory Design

Living Labs are an emerging Public Private Partnership (PPP) concept in which firms, public authorities and citizens work together to create, prototype, validate and test new services, businesses, markets and technologies in real-life contexts, such as cities, city regions, rural areas and collaborative virtual networks between public and private players. The real-life and everyday life contexts will both stimulate and challenge research and development as public authorities and citizens will not only participate in, but also contribute to the whole innovation process. This paper examines the state-of-the art in involving the user and stakeholder organisations into the innovation process in various ongoing, embryonic Living Labs initiatives, examines the key practices that need to be in place for the maturation of the concept and gives examples on how those are currently being deployed. The paper concludes with a section dedicated to identifying areas in which future research is required.

State-of-the-art and good practice in the field of living labs

Exploring Quadruple Helix Outlining user-oriented innovation models

Various public and private stakeholders are creating, supporting and using environments for joint testing and experimenting of broadband innovations. This paper proposes a conceptual framework of test and experimentation platforms (TEPs), that differentiates six types of TEPs, based on a.o. technological maturity, openness and focus; and consists of testbeds, field trials, prototyping platforms, living labs, market pilots and societal pilots. The major rationales to establish TEPs are identified and the a priori requirements for TEPs are deduced. These are then matched with the actual characteristics of TEPs as they are being set up and used in three European benchmark countries today. In general, it can be said that while specific context and country influences are obvious, the TEPs that were examined exhibit a remarkable commonality in the sense that for all types of TEPs, we have found ample instances of valuable, open initiatives aimed at joint innovation, and mostly involving (business or individual) users.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID1331557_code1034017.pdf?abstractid=1331557&mirid=1&type=2

Test and Experimentation Platforms for Broadband Innovation: Examining European Practice

The E2R II Flexible Spectrum Management (FSM) Framework and Cognitive Pilot Channel (CPC) Concept – Technical and Business Analysis and Recommendations (E2R II White Paper)

This paper examines the international, inter- organizational collaboration processes for the development of cognitive radio, which will be at the basis of potentially profound changes in the telecommunications value network, as well as its functional architecture, cost and value structure and the eventual value proposition of any services deployed in such a value network. The paper will analyze the transition in telecommunications from linear standardization taking place mainly in the domain of formal Standardization Organizations, to a highly complex and multi-layered process simultaneously involving formal organizations, informal bodies and industrial consortia. Subsequently, the paper discusses the development of a Cognitive Pilot Channel to show how innovation in telecommunications markets is determined by this complex interplay. It also explores how the collaborative process between research, regulation and standardization of a Cognitive Pilot Channel in different standardization platforms (viz. IEEE SCC41 and ETSI TC RRS) might influence the eventual deployment of such a cognitive radio technology and networks and services enabled by it, as well as the business models for it. For doing this, an exploratory business model scorecard analysis is performed on some of the different revenue sharing models coming out of diverging design choices of the CPC.

Multi-Level Standardization and Business Models for Cognitive Radio: The Case of the Cognitive Pilot Channel

Test and experimentation platforms for broadband innovation: examining european practice

The concept of flexible spectrum management, which refers to a set of new and dynamic procedures and techniques for obtaining and transferring spectrum usage rights and dynamically changing the specific use of frequencies, plays an important role in fully exploiting the advantages of cognitive, reconfigurable networks and terminals. This paper provides an overview of policy trends towards flexible spectrum management in the EU, in the context of operational solutions for reconfigurability as they are currently being developed within Phase II of the EU FP6 project "end-to-end reconfigurability". It argues that, even within policy environments making increasingly more use of market based mechanisms, and even within reconfigurable systems where decision-making is highly decentralized and in which real-time mechanisms for dynamic spectrum management are used, there is a need for centralized 'controlling entities', which may fulfill a diverse set of roles.

Simon Delaere

Papers

Test and Experimentation Platforms for Broadband Innovation: Examining European Practice

The E2R II Flexible Spectrum Management (FSM) Framework and Cognitive Pilot Channel (CPC) Concept – Technical and Business Analysis and Recommendations (E2R II White Paper)

Multi-Level Standardization and Business Models for Cognitive Radio: The Case of the Cognitive Pilot Channel

Test and experimentation platforms for broadband innovation: examining european practice

Flexible Spectrum Management and the Need for Controlling Entities for Reconfigurable Wireless Systems