The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) is drawing attention for achieving its best-ever results at international standardization conferences related to Internet of Things (IoT) technology and smart cities, which are gaining significant prominence with the advent of the hyper-connected society.

ETRI announced on the 27th that it achieved its greatest results ever at the ITU-T Internet of Things and Smart Cities Study Group 20 (SG20) international meeting held in Arusha, Tanzania from the 13th to the 22nd, with 13 technologies developed under the leadership of its research team being approved as standards and 4 being adopted as new standardization projects.


The Study Group (SG20) is a research group that oversees international standards for Internet of Things and smart city applications and services.

Last March, Dr. Kim Hyung-joon of ETRI was elected as chairman.

At this meeting, over 400 experts from 47 countries around the world attended and engaged in heated discussions for the development of international standards.

ETRI, with a total of 11 standards experts including Dr. Kim Hyung-joon, the chief representative of the South Korean delegation, led standardization discussions on the direction of SG20 activities for the next ITU-T study period (2025–2028) and major issues such as digital twins, smart cities, and smart agriculture.

ETRI [developed] a total of 10 cases, including the Digital Twin Alliance for Smart Cities and delivery robot interoperability requirements, led by its research teamThe standard was pre-adopted.

Along with this, one standard, one annex, and one technical document were also finally approved.

In particular, four new standardization projects were adopted, including a delivery robot interoperability reference structure and a device discovery and management framework for service interoperability in heterogeneous IoT environments.

ETRI stated that the 'Digital Twin Alliance Standard for Smart Cities,' which has been pre-adopted as a standard, is expected to have significant potential for future utilization as a standard, as it provides a foundation for creating new services through an alliance that shares data and functions among various digital twins used in smart cities, such as those in transportation, environment, and healthcare.

Furthermore, the final approval of the research team's standard for IoT device camera detection information metadata is evaluated as having laid the foundation for securing global interoperability between IoT applications and services.

In addition, ETRI proposed establishing a new research project in the SG20 research group during the next research session to take charge of the standardization of smart city platforms, including digital twins.

This laid the foundation for securing the initiative by establishing the direction for the restructuring of SG20 in the next ITU-T study session.

At this meeting, in conjunction with the Metaverse Focus Group (FG-MV), a special session was held to introduce the activities and prospects of the FG-MV, and a forum was held for 'CitiVerse,' a service that provides smart city functions on the metaverse, to propose future directions for SG20 activities and explore cooperation methods among groups within the ITU-T.

Dr. Kim Hyung-joon of ETRI, International Chair of ITU-T SG20 and Chief Representative of the Korean Delegation, stated, “In the current situation where international interest in smart cities is rising, establishing technologies proactively developed by Korea as international standards is digital "It is a good opportunity to lead the era of transition," he said.

Based on this international standardization achievement, ETRI plans to strive to further revitalize international standardization activities so that industry, academia, and research institutes can secure global market leadership in key ICT technology fields.