Selected Articles from IEEE Xplore - December 2016

Introduction by Raffaele Giaffreda, CREATE-NET

Inarguably, the popularity of future scenarios realized through IoT is on the rise. Besides fueling the imagination of innovation experts, this is also pushing the research and development community to deliver solutions that can withstand the hype and support the high demand for large scale, widely available, and yet low-cost IoT-based solutions. A key aspect in the achievement of these goals is the role played by the communication technologies to ensure sensed data can be reliably delivered to the applications using it.

The papers selected this month uncover issues and propose solutions in the domain of communications for IoT, often regarded as one of the trickiest components in the overall budget of building IoT-based solutions and also recently considered for better defining what 5G networks will look like.

NB-IoT is the telco operators attempt to exploit the forthcoming IoT opportunities without having to design and deploy separate networks. Reuse of existing LTE infrastructure and core networks enables operators to target low cost service offerings within licensed portions of their spectrum.

Besides monetary costs, energy budget costs are also an important discriminator in deciding which communication technologies to use, especially when sensing units are deployed in remote and not easily reached areas. The longer battery powered devices can operate, the cheaper it gets to maintain solutions that make heavy use of that.

Cheap and wide range communications are also a strong requirement as we harvest opportunities in vertical sectors such as e-Health, regarded as one of the areas in the B2C market with the highest growth potential. With an unprecedented availability of wearable devices and the challenges coming from an ageing society, the role of communications and 5G networks will be key in supporting high-density always-on connectivity for remote monitoring and diagnostics purposes. Stretching further into the future, the next wave of innovation is expected to come from the Tactile Internet, where ultra-low latency and reliable communications technologies are expected to support physical haptic experiences remotely, with all implications associated with the deployment of medical services anywhere, anytime, to anyone.

 

IEEE Xplore References

  1. R. Ratasuk, B. Vejlgaard, N. Mangalvedhe and A. Ghosh, "NB-IoT system for M2M communication," 2016 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference, Doha, 2016, pp. 1-5.
  2. F. D. Rango, D. Barletta and A. Imbrogno, "Energy aware communication between smart IoT monitoring devices," 2016 International Symposium on Performance Evaluation of Computer and Telecommunication Systems (SPECTS), Montreal, QC, 2016, pp. 1-7.
  3. J. M. C. Brito, "Trends in wireless communications towards 5G networks — The influence of e-health and IoT applications," 2016 International Multidisciplinary Conference on Computer and Energy Science (SpliTech), Split, 2016, pp. 1-7.

 

Subscribe to the IEEE Internet of Things Technical Community to receive complimentary access to our selected articles each month via email.

 

View more Selected Articles from IEEE Xplore