Selected Articles from IEEE Xplore - January 2017
Introduction by Roozbeh Jafari, Texas A&M, USA
As wearable computers gain traction in the consumer and medical markets, the unflinching vision of unobtrusive, pervasive and continuous physiological and behavioral monitoring is taking hold in everyday life. These platforms provide new avenues to continuously monitor individuals, whether they are intended to detect an early onset of a disease, assess human performance or the effectiveness of a treatment. They provide opportunities to close the loop with the human or the physical environment and offer real-time feedback or actuation.
In the past few years, the community has observed a large number of applications that have been developed using wearable computers. There are a number of fundamental challenges that need to be addressed before realizing the true ubiquitous use of the wearable systems. Wearable computers are expected to offer connectivity when required by the applications, operate with ultra-low power to assure extended battery life and provide opportunities for seamless and opportunistic recharging. Although the scientific communities both in academia and industry have looked into some of the research tasks, many critical challenges still remain open.
IEEE Xplore References
- A. Kapoor, N. Engin and J. Verdaasdonk, "Leakage mitigation for low power microcontroller design in 40nm for Internet-of-Things (IoT)," 2016 IEEE 22nd International Symposium on On-Line Testing and Robust System Design (IOLTS), Sant Feliu de Guixols, 2016, pp. 126-129.
- K. I. K. Wang, A. Rajamohan, S. Dubey, S. A. Catapang and Z. Salcic, "A Wearable Internet of Things Mote with Bare Metal 6LoWPAN Protocol for Pervasive Healthcare," 2014 IEEE 11th Intl Conf on Ubiquitous Intelligence and Computing and 2014 IEEE 11th Intl Conf on Autonomic and Trusted Computing and 2014 IEEE 14th Intl Conf on Scalable Computing and Communications and Its Associated Workshops, Bali, 2014, pp. 750-756.
- J. Bito, M. M. Tentzeris and A. Georgiadis, "A hybrid heuristic design technique for real-time matching optimization for wearable near-field ambient RF energy harvesters," 2016 IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium (IMS), San Francisco, CA, 2016, pp. 1-4.
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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
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
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Selected Articles from IEEE Xplore - October 2016
Introduction by Hung-Yu Wei, National Taiwan University
The success of the Internet of Things (IoT) depends on the ease and the cost of deploying and maintaining IoT services in a scalable way. Power supply is among the key issues in IoT device deployment and management. In many deployment scenarios, IoT devices will not be line-powered. In other scenarios, replacing batteries for IoT devices might be too costly. As a result, supplying power through energy harvesting modules (e.g. solar cell, vibration-powered, piezoelectric, RF radiation energy harvesting, etc.) for IoT devices becomes an attractive solution.
To optimize the system performance, IoT system and device design needs to take the properties of energy harvesting sources into consideration. The type of energy harvesting sources and deployment scenarios affect the energy harvesting rate and its variations. Unlike battery-driven IoT deployment cases, system design emphasizes on maximizing the battery life. On the contrary, adaptive power management policies in energy harvesting IoT systems need to harvest, manage, and use energy wisely so that data communications can be enabled when needed. Reliability is an important performance metric for energy harvesting systems. Communications policies and energy policies need to be jointly optimized to achieve reliable operations. In addition, energy harvesting IoT system design is not just about device components. Cross-layer system design that is aware of energy harvesting characteristics is critical to ensure end-to-end IoT service quality.
IEEE Xplore References
- P. Kamalinejad, C. Mahapatra, Z. Sheng, S. Mirabbasi, V. C. M. Leung and Y. L. Guan, "Wireless energy harvesting for the Internet of Things," in IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 53, no. 6, pp. 102-108, June 2015.
- M. Gorlatova, J. Sarik, G. Grebla, M. Cong, I. Kymissis and G. Zussman, "Movers and Shakers: Kinetic Energy Harvesting for the Internet of Things," in IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, vol. 33, no. 8, pp. 1624-1639, Aug. 2015.
- L. Lei, Y. Kuang, X. S. Shen, K. Yang, J. Qiao and Z. Zhong, "Optimal Reliability in Energy Harvesting Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks," in IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, vol. 15, no. 8, pp. 5399-5413, Aug. 2016.
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Selected Articles from IEEE Xplore - November 2016
Introduction by Yen-Kuang Chen, An-Yeu (Andy) Wu, Magdy A. Bayoumi, and Farinaz Koushanfar
While the IoT will provide us with enormous benefits in the next five to ten years, there are some security and privacy challenges. Data security and privacy is always a major concern, and is even more important in IoT, which touches many aspects of human life. Some low-cost devices have a limited budget to implement strong security or cryptography features. These lightweight devices can become the weakest links in the system. Conventional firewalls that provide network security by blocking malicious traffic can no longer work in IoT because of its decentralized nature. If the lightweight devices are not properly secured, the data they produce cannot be fully trusted. Attackers may provide false information that alters the behaviors of the system. Designing low-cost and scalable crypto algorithms and hardware accelerators is crucial. A system-level security analytics and self-adaptive security policy framework are also needed. This month we would like to introduce three papers on IoT data security and privacy.
First, future vehicles will be fully connected using sensors and communication capabilities. This will be a significant realization of IoT. “Challenges and Opportunities for Securing Intelligent Transportation System” examines the risks faced by the current intelligent transportation system architecture and public key infrastructure for vehicle communication. The analysis calls for future research directions in order to achieve the full potential for a future intelligent transportation system.
Second, conventional wisdom believes symmetric-key cryptography is less expensive than public-key cryptography. However, public-key cryptography actually has a lower total cost of ownership because of cost savings in provision, deployment, and management. Furthermore, public-key cryptography can be more energy efficient because public-key-based security protocols usually use less communication than their symmetric-key-based counterparts. “Securing M2M With Post-Quantum Public-Key Cryptography” demonstrates the feasibility of using hardware-based public-key cryptography to provide data security in IoT applications.
Third, sensors may fail due to many reasons. In a body sensor network, it is even more challenging because of energy constraints. “Fault-Tolerant and Low-Power Sampling Schedules for Localized BASNs” presents a comprehensive study from application requirements to system designs.
IEEE Xplore References
- M. Zhao, J. Walker and C. C. Wang, "Challenges and Opportunities for Securing Intelligent Transportation System," in IEEE Journal on Emerging and Selected Topics in Circuits and Systems, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 96-105, March 2013.
- J. R. Shih et al., "Securing M2M With Post-Quantum Public-Key Cryptography," in IEEE Journal on Emerging and Selected Topics in Circuits and Systems, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 106-116, March 2013.
- V. Goudar and M. Potkonjak, "Fault-Tolerant and Low-Power Sampling Schedules for Localized BASNs," in IEEE Journal on Emerging and Selected Topics in Circuits and Systems, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 86-95, March 2013.
Errata: In the September issue it was stated that the Introduction was done by Jianqing Zhang, UMware Inc., when it should have said, Introduction by Jianqing Zhang, VMware Inc. We have since corrected this issue.
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Selected Articles from IEEE Xplore - September 2016
Introduction by Jianqing Zhang, VMware Inc.
The Internet of Things (IoT) connects everyone with everything anywhere and at anytime. It fills the gap between the physical world and the cyber world, and will significantly change people's lives. At the same time, IoT applications have to address the same security problems in the cyber world with new challenges which are brought on by IoT itself. A common pitfall in IoT security practices is to “naively” leverage classic security mechanisms without systematic analysis or evaluation. Such methodology usually fails to address the system constraints, real-time requirements, practical economic models, etc. in IoT applications. Therefore, it cannot achieve the goal of protecting IoT assets. On the other hand, being an ecosystem, IoT does not stand alone. For example, smart phones, the de facto hub or gateway of IoT devices, play a key role in connecting smart devices. Smart phone apps form a platform and ecosystem of IoT applications like the Smart Home. Mobile computing, or smart phone technology, is one of the pillars of IoT in most cases. The study and analysis of security of the ecosystems will present us with an opportunity to re-visit our mindset or paradigm of IoT security. In general, although security may not turn out to be a real obstacle in the adoption of IoT, it will have wider and deeper impact on us because it will be immersed into our lives. We need consider IoT security problems from a perspective of IoT.
IEEE Xplore References
- R. Roman, P. Najera and J. Lopez, "Securing the Internet of Things," in Computer, vol. 44, no. 9, pp. 51-58, Sept. 2011.
- M. Zhao, J. Walker and C. C. Wang, "Challenges and Opportunities for Securing Intelligent Transportation System," in IEEE Journal on Emerging and Selected Topics in Circuits and Systems, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 96-105, March 2013.
- E. Fernandes, J. Jung and A. Prakash, "Security Analysis of Emerging Smart Home Applications," 2016 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (SP), San Jose, CA, USA, 2016, pp. 636-654.
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