QoS in Wireless Sensor/Actuator Networks

Dear Colleagues,

We are at the brink of a new industrial revolution, fueled by increasing miniaturization and the ubiquity of modern embedded systems as well as advances in artificial intelligence and in information and communication technologies. Computers, sensors, and actuators are becoming more ubiquitous and, most importantly, increasingly connected, and as this revolution unfolds, these cyberphysical systems are pushing the boundaries of scalability and reaching unprecedented levels of autonomy.

Naturally, wireless communication technologies and, in particular, wireless sensor and actuator networks (WSANs), became the primary enabler for such applications and are envisaged to shape the supporting communication infrastructure for the Industry 4.0 and Internet-of-Things paradigms. Consequently, WSANs are increasingly being considered for deployment in applications such as in industrial automation, process control, ambient assisted living, structural health monitoring or homeland security, but also for unexpected safety-critical scenarios, such advanced driving assistance systems or aircraft active airflow control systems.

However, although wireless communication technologies have  been pervasive in our daily lives for decades, their adoption in safety- or mission-critical scenarios has been quite slow, mostly due to limitations related to reliability, security, and overall dependability. Undeniably, most of these applications require stringent Quality-of-Service (QoS) guarantees from their underlying communication infrastructures (regardless of their wireless or hybrid nature), and while QoS has been traditionally associated with bit/data rate, network throughput, message delay, and bit/packet error rate, these properties alone do not reflect the overall QoS that needs to be provided to this type of application (and their users). Other (non-functional) properties must also be considered in the design of such complex cyberphysical systems. Importantly, designers must now balance such properties in interplay with security and safety.

This Special Issue targets scientific contributions on wireless sensor/actuator networks and systems (WSANs) addressing QoS properties (hopefully in combination) such as reliability and robustness, timeliness and real-time properties, scalability, mobility, security and privacy, and energy efficiency and sustainability. We particularly seek papers concerning long-standing cases that have been sufficiently tested and evaluated, either through analytical, simulation, or experimental models (hopefully in combination). Extensions to previously published works are accepted, provided that this fact is clearly stated in the submission and the new contribution is significant.

In this context, we are envisaging works covering one or more of the following WSAN topics, with QoS as an overall concern and overarching aspect:

• System architectures―e.g., improving hardware (e.g., radio technology), software (including operating systems), and communication network architectures to achieve better QoS; scalability; WSAN integration in and interoperability with legacy wired systems; cross-layer design.
• Reliability and robustness―improving communication errors detection/correction, hardware robustness, systems reliability in general.
• Timeliness and real-time―improving the timing behavior and reducing/bounding (end-to-end) communication delays, innovative time synchronization techniques.
• Security and privacy―new mechanisms to grant adequate levels of security/privacy without jeopardizing energy and time.
• Mobility―mechanisms to support mobile devices in a seamless and transparent way, i.e., still respecting the overall QoS requirements.
• Energy sustainability, efficiency, and harvesting―improving devices/system lifetime, e.g., through optimized communications scheduling/duty-cycling and energy/delay trade-offs.
• Radio interference identification and mitigation―improving the detection, classification and mitigation of communication errors deriving from radio propagation and interference.
• Communication and network protocols: QoS add-ons, performance/worst-case analysis (analytical, simulation, experimental).
• QoS in the Internet-of-Things, cyberphysical systems and Industry 4.0 contexts.
• Experimental facilities and test-beds, pilot demonstrations/deployments; innovative simulation and emulation models, platforms, and methodologies.
• Real-world applications, such as in smart health, environmental/structural monitoring, factory automation, process control, smart buildings, body sensor networks, vehicular networks or security/surveillance.
• Communication standards and technologies for WSAN, e.g., IEEE 802.11, WiFi, IEEE 802.15.4, ZigBee, 6loWPAN, WirelessHART, ISA SP100, MQTT, DASH7, SigFox, LoRa, and their integration/interoperability with wired networks.
• Novel communication technologies to overcome an increasingly overcrowded radio spectrum (e.g., visible light, mm-wave, thermal, vibration, acoustic) communication.

Dr. Ricardo Severino
Dr. Hossein Fotouhi
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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• wireless
• quality-of-service
• reliability
• real-time
• security
• dependability