IoT-based smart cities: a bibliometric analysis and literature review

Modern cities face many challenges related to globalisation, metropolisation and digitalisation. The smart city concept, which has been gaining popularity in recent years, is considered an answer to their needs. One of the paradigms of modern smart cities is the Internet of Things. This article aims to identify the main research directions and trends in the scientific literature in the field of Internet-of-Things-based smart cities. The author of the paper conducted a bibliometric analysis of publications from 2012–2021, collected from the Web of Science, Scopus and IEEE Xplore databases. The methodology includes: (i) the selection of databases and key words, (ii) defining search criteria, (iii) data export, creation of an aggregate database and record selection, and (iv) the analysis of the results and identification of the major research trends. The study involved 1019 publications. The last stage of the research process identified the leading countries, institutions, journals, and authors in terms of publication activity, as well as the most frequently occurring terms. The key word analysis allowed identifying five main research directions: IoT application domains in smart cities, IoT architecture for smart cities, energy, security and privacy and data. Within each area, the main research themes have been identified, and selected publications have been reviewed.