Perspective: Smart citiesDHS Seeks Standards for “Smart City” Sensors, Starting in St. Louis

Published 3 September 2019

The Homeland Security Department’s Science and Technology Directorate is kicking off a pilot program that will test the integration of smart city technologies in St. Louis, Missouri. Working in collaboration with the city and the Open Geospatial Consortium, agency insiders will use the pilot to research, design and assess Homeland Security’s Smart City Interoperability Reference Architecture, or SCIRA.

The Homeland Security Department’s Science and TechnologyDirectorate is kicking off a pilot program that will test the integration of smart city technologies in St. Louis, Missouri, the agency announced Wednesday. 

Brandi Vincent writes in Defense One that working in collaboration with the city and the Open Geospatial Consortium, agency insiders will use the pilot to research, design and assess Homeland Security’s Smart City Interoperability Reference Architecture, or SCIRA

“There’s tremendous pressure on cities, right now,” Norman Speicher, a program manager working in the weeds of the project told Nextgov. “Many municipalities, I do hear that they are being pressured and that there’s this expectation that they know what ‘smart cities’ means—and it really means many things to many people.”

“As more cities turn to next-generation technologies to support public safety, the department recognized a need to ensure that the new smart tech is interoperable with city departments and other jurisdictions and that city officials understand its potential, implications, and requirements,” Vincent writes. “SCIRA aims to assess standards as they develop in the realm of public safety and support the development of an open architecture for interoperable internet of things sensors.”