ANSI, NIST, and Partners Launch International Working Group to Develop Consensus Framework for Smart City Architectures

NEW YORK, Feb. 18, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) has joined the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and several partners to launch a new international technical working group that will develop a white paper defining common architectural principles and a vocabulary for smart cities.

In consultation with city stakeholders, the group will do a comparative analysis of existing architectural efforts and produce a framework document that can be used to bring greater coherence to standardization activities taking place internationally in various standards developing organizations and consortia. ANSI's role is primarily outreach and awareness-raising to encourage technical experts to participate in the initiative and to use the working group's output in subsequent standards activities in which ANSI plays a role as coordinator of the U.S. standardization system and U.S. member to international standards bodies.

Other international partners supporting the activity are: the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI); the Republic of Korea's Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MSIP) ; the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC); FIWARE, an open cloud-based platform for cost-effective creation and delivery of innovative applications and services; and the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA).

The kick-off workshop for the initiative will take place at NIST's Gaithersburg, MD, campus on March 24-25, 2016, in conjunction with the NIST Global City Teams Challenge (GCTC) Tech Jam. The partners expect to draw on the expertise of GCTC project teams that collaborate on city scale applications, and on the Draft Framework for Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), produced by the NIST CPS public working group, which provides a scientific underpinning of the description of the Internet of Things (IoT).

A second workshop will be held April 14-15, 2016, in Rome, Italy, hosted by ENEA. Both workshops will follow similar agenda formats with in-depth presentations from experts engaged in activities in the different geographic regions. Interim results will be considered at subsequent workshops in the June / July timeframe. The intention is to produce an initial draft document by September and to finalize it by June of next year.

Participation in the activity is open to anyone. NIST has set up a collaboration website for the project which includes an email list sign-up and a briefing paper providing more information on the project. For more information, visit https://pages.nist.gov/smartcitiesarchitecture/.

Chris Greer, director of NIST's Smart Grid and Cyber-Physical Systems Program, said, "The growth of the smart cities market is currently hindered by ICT deployments that are customized and not fully interoperable or scalable, as well as by the lack of convergence around architectural design principles and a common language or taxonomy. We want to avoid potentially divergent outputs from emerging standards activities and, instead, come up with a framework that will enable smart city solutions that meet the needs of modern communities."

ANSI president and CEO Joe Bhatia said, "ANSI has a long-standing, cooperative working relationship with NIST and so we are pleased to lend a hand in promoting this effort to bring greater clarity and consistency to the standardization dialogue around smart cities."

In response to increased focus on the emerging market for smart and sustainable cities, ANSI established in 2014 the ANSI Network on Smart and Sustainable Cities (ANSSC), a forum for information sharing and coordination on voluntary standards, conformity assessment, and related activities for smart and sustainable cities in the U.S. and abroad. Participation in the ANSSC provides access to timely information and monthly webinars on smart cities standardization activities. For more information, visit www.ansi.org/cities. 

As the U.S. member of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and, via the U.S. National Committee, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), ANSI is also supporting the World Smart City Forum being organized in cooperation with the International Telecommunication Union and taking place July 13, 2016, in Singapore. For more information, visit www.worldsmartcity.org/.

About ANSI
The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) is a private non-profit organization whose mission is to enhance U.S. global competitiveness and the American quality of life by promoting, facilitating, and safeguarding the integrity of the voluntary standardization and conformity assessment system. Its membership is comprised of businesses, professional societies and trade associations, standards developers, government agencies, and consumer and labor organizations. The Institute represents the diverse interests of more than 125,000 companies and organizations and 3.5 million professionals worldwide.

The Institute is the official U.S. representative to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and, via the U.S. National Committee, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).

SOURCE American National Standards Institute

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