Re/Imagining Smart Home Automation Framework in the Era of 6G-Enabled Smart Cities

Smart home automation systems represent a seamless integration of Internet of Things technologies, facilitating the monitoring, management, and regulation of various aspects of our daily life. By leveraging advancements in communication, computing, sensing, and actuator technologies, they hold promises for enhancing the living experience. However, they face challenges such as the need for timely updates, efficient data management, real-time Big data processing, robust security measures, and advanced analytics. In this paper, we propose a novel framework that capitalizes on the capabilities of 6G networks and 6G-enabled cloud computing to address these challenges and improve the overall landscape of smart cities. This framework features enhanced security, data pre-processing, big data intelligence, and security service virtualization in the cloud. Through various application scenarios and a case study-focusing on safe routing during disasters, we demonstrate the utility of this framework and the critical role 6G networks and 6G-enabled cloud computing play in smart home automation.