An Edge-Cloud Digital Twin Platform for Intelligent Smart Park Services

Overview

Protected natural areas increasingly require intelligent infrastructures to monitor environmental conditions, support visitors, and assist park management while preserving privacy and operating under limited connectivity. Addressing these challenges requires integrated architectures that combine distributed sensing, edge intelligence, cloud services, and Digital Twin (DT) technologies. This work presents a Smart Park platform developed for the "I Giganti della Sila" State Reserve in the Sila National Park, Calabria, Italy. The platform adopts a layered edge-cloud architecture organized around a closed operational loop that acquires environmental and visitor data, processes them through distributed intelligence, and delivers actionable services to visitors and park operators. A territorial DT federates multiple sensing and analytics subsystems into a unified, real-time representation of the park.