The Internet of Cultural Things: Towards a Smart Cultural Heritage

Abstract

Cultural Heritage (CH) represents a worldwide resource of inestimable value, attracting millions of visitors every year to monuments, museums, exhibitions and historical centres. Fundamental aspects of this resource to be enhanced are the promotion, the tutelage, the safeguard and people enjoyment. The Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm applied to the Cultural Heritage domain is a novel concept integrating intelligent objects, sensors, services and applications within static cultural places. The objective is to transform these spaces into Smart Cultural Heritage environments. The Internet of Cultural Things is an emerging discipline aims to design a novel fruition, tutelage and promotion models of the Cultural Heritage in the worldwide. The designed and developed IoT systems will be able to be pervasive and ubiquitous with the definitive goal of rethinking CH in terms of sustainability, enrichment and valorisation towards the future generations. Furthermore, the Internet of Cultural Things can provide greater efficiency in the coordination of processes and facilitate the development of new activities that can generate economic returns.