Objectives  Nowadays, a vast number of sensors and observation platforms bring a significant challenge for city perception. In the study, we focus on developing of a smart city tempo-spatial perception system. The concept of smart city awareness base station (SCABS) is proposed in this study, and the SCABS architecture considers the above problems.

  Methods  Firstly, we systematically reviewed the requirements and the complexity of smart city perception and summarized the development process and network architecture of smart city perception technology systems. On this basis, the challenges of ubiquitous access, trusted perception and intelligent management in future smart city perception are addressed. Then, this paper sorted out the demand for future city perception services and constructed the architecture of SCABS. Finally, we standardized the technical indicators and service capabilities of SCABS.

  Results  We constructed the prototype of SCABS. According to the qualitative analysis and experiments based on real environment, we found that SCABS with unified access, integrated management, and edge intelligence can meet the access and management ability of multi-platform and high-density sensing resources.

  Conclusions  SCABS would act an essential role in the smart city perception in the future. As a cyber-physical infrastructure, it expects to cover various scenarios in the city with multiple heterogeneous perception access and hybrid access of multi-protocols, and to automatically support the multi-platform coordinated control. The SCABS meets global, accurate, heterogeneous, and multiple sensory perception. The SCABS is expected to be one of the critical infrastructures of the future smart city.