Emerging IoT Sensor Network Technologies and Applications

A special issue of Electronics (ISSN 2079-9292). This special issue belongs to the section "Networks".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 March 2026 | Viewed by 979

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Computers and Information Technology, Politehnica University Timisoara, 300086 Timisoara, Romania
Interests: IoT devices; wireless sensor networks; smart medical devices

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Computers and Information Technology, Politehnica University Timisoara, 300086 Timisoara, Romania
Interests: computing architectures; reconfigurable systems; system design and co-design; system reliability; system testing

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The rapid evolution of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies has transformed the way we interact with the physical world, enabling seamless integration of sensor networks into diverse applications. IoT sensor networks, which consist of interconnected devices capable of collecting, processing, and transmitting data, serve as the backbone of this transformation. From environmental monitoring and healthcare to industrial automation and smart cities, these networks are driving innovation across domains.

At the heart of this field lies the convergence of advanced sensing technologies, low-power wireless communication protocols, and data-driven analytics, which together enable unprecedented levels of automation and insight. The emergence of 5G, edge computing, and AI-powered analytics further amplifies the potential of IoT sensor networks, allowing for faster, more efficient, and context-aware systems.

The importance of research in IoT sensor networks cannot be overstated, as these technologies address critical challenges, including resource efficiency, real-time decision-making, and scalable deployments. By pushing the boundaries of sensing, connectivity, and data processing, this field continues to pave the way for groundbreaking applications that improve quality of life, enhance productivity, and contribute to sustainable development.

This Special Issue aims to bring together cutting-edge research and innovative applications, showcasing how emerging IoT sensor network technologies are shaping the future and addressing the complexities of a connected world.

This Special Issue aims to explore advancements in IoT sensor network technologies and their applications, highlighting innovative solutions that address emerging challenges in connectivity, sensing, and data processing. These topics align closely with the scope of Electronics, which focuses on cutting-edge research in electronic systems, devices, and applications. By emphasizing the intersection of electronics and IoT, this issue showcases the pivotal role of electronic innovations in shaping the future of connected systems and intelligent applications.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

  1. Next-Generation IoT Sensors: Development of novel sensors with enhanced sensitivity, energy efficiency, and miniaturization for IoT applications.
  2. Low-Power Communication Protocols: Advances in wireless communication technologies for resource-constrained IoT sensor networks.
  3. Edge Computing in IoT Sensor Networks: Integration of edge computing to enable real-time data processing and decision-making.
  4. AI and Machine Learning for IoT: Application of AI and ML techniques for efficient data analysis and predictive modeling in IoT networks.
  5. 5G and Beyond for IoT Connectivity: Role of advanced networks in supporting scalable and high-performance IoT sensor deployments.
  6. Security and Privacy in IoT Sensor Networks: Solutions for safeguarding data integrity, confidentiality, and resilience against cyber threats.
  7. IoT for Smart Cities: Using sensor networks to optimize urban infrastructure, traffic management, and environmental monitoring.
  8. Industrial IoT (IIoT) Applications: Use of IoT sensor networks in manufacturing, supply chain optimization, and predictive maintenance.
  9. Energy Harvesting for IoT Sensors: Innovations in self-powered IoT sensors using renewable energy sources.
  10. Environmental and Healthcare Applications: Deployment of IoT sensor networks for environmental protection and advanced healthcare monitoring.

Dr. Alexandru Iovanovici
Dr. Lucian Prodan
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • IoT sensor networks
  • edge computing
  • wireless communication protocols
  • AI and machine learning in IoT
  • 5G connectivity
  • low-power electronics
  • IoT security and privacy
  • smart cities
  • Industrial IoT (IIoT)
  • energy-efficient sensors

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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20 pages, 2856 KB  
Article
Privacy-Preserving Federated Review Analytics with Data Quality Optimization for Heterogeneous IoT Platforms
by Jiantao Xu, Liu Jin and Chunhua Su
Electronics 2025, 14(19), 3816; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics14193816 - 26 Sep 2025
Abstract
The proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices has created a distributed ecosystem where users generate vast amounts of review data across heterogeneous platforms, from smart home assistants to connected vehicles. This data is crucial for service improvement but is plagued by fake [...] Read more.
The proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices has created a distributed ecosystem where users generate vast amounts of review data across heterogeneous platforms, from smart home assistants to connected vehicles. This data is crucial for service improvement but is plagued by fake reviews, data quality inconsistencies, and significant privacy risks. Traditional centralized analytics fail in this landscape due to data privacy regulations and the sheer scale of distributed data. To address this, we propose FedDQ, a federated learning framework for Privacy-Preserving Federated Review Analytics with Data Quality Optimization. FedDQ introduces a multi-faceted data quality assessment module that operates locally on each IoT device, evaluating review data based on textual coherence, behavioral patterns, and cross-modal consistency without exposing raw data. These quality scores are then used to orchestrate a quality-aware aggregation mechanism at the server, prioritizing contributions from high-quality, reliable clients. Furthermore, our framework incorporates differential privacy and models system heterogeneity to ensure robustness and practical applicability in resource-constrained IoT environments. Extensive experiments on multiple real-world datasets show that FedDQ significantly outperforms baseline federated learning methods in accuracy, convergence speed, and resilience to data poisoning attacks, achieving up to a 13.8% improvement in F1-score under highly heterogeneous and noisy conditions while preserving user privacy. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging IoT Sensor Network Technologies and Applications)
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Review

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40 pages, 2153 KB  
Review
DeepChainIoT: Exploring the Mutual Enhancement of Blockchain and Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) in the Internet of Things (IoT)
by Sabina Sapkota, Yining Hu, Asif Gill and Farookh Khadeer Hussain
Electronics 2025, 14(17), 3395; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics14173395 - 26 Aug 2025
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Abstract
The Internet of Things (IoT) is widely used across domains such as smart homes, healthcare, and grids. As billions of devices become connected, strong privacy and security measures are essential to protect sensitive information and prevent cyber-attacks. However, IoT devices often have limited [...] Read more.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is widely used across domains such as smart homes, healthcare, and grids. As billions of devices become connected, strong privacy and security measures are essential to protect sensitive information and prevent cyber-attacks. However, IoT devices often have limited computing power and storage, making it difficult to implement robust security and manage large volumes of data. Existing studies have explored integrating blockchain and Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) to address security, storage, and data dissemination in IoT networks, but they often fail to fully leverage the mutual enhancement between them. This paper proposes DeepChainIoT, a blockchain–DNN integrated framework designed to address centralization, latency, throughput, storage, and privacy challenges in generic IoT networks. It integrates smart contracts with a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) autoencoder for anomaly detection and secure transaction encoding, along with an optimized Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT) consensus mechanism featuring transaction prioritization and node rating. On a public pump sensor dataset, our LSTM autoencoder achieved 99.6% accuracy, 100% recall, 97.95% precision, and a 98.97% F1-score, demonstrating balanced performance, along with a 23.9× compression ratio. Overall, DeepChainIoT enhances IoT security, reduces latency, improves throughput, and optimizes storage while opening new directions for research in trustworthy computing. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging IoT Sensor Network Technologies and Applications)
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