Submit to Electronics Review for Electronics Propose a Special Issue

Journal Menu

Journal Browser

► Journal Browser

Internet-to-Everything (I2X) Communications, Applications and Management in Future Networks

Print Special Issue Flyer
Special Issue Editors
Special Issue Information
Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue
Published Papers

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

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2023) | Viewed by 35760

Share This Special Issue

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Laith Farhan

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

1. School of Engineering, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester M1 5GD, UK
2. Electric Computer Center, University of Diyala, Baqubah, Iraq
Interests: energy optimisation in the IoT and WSN networks; network management; smart city design and planning; machine learning; big data analytics; routing; wireless communications
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Khaled Rabie

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Department of Engineering, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester M15GD, UK
Interests: wireless communications; IoT; 6G; smart manufacturing
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Xingwang Li

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

School of Physics and Electronic Information Engineering, Henan Polytechnic University, Jiaozuo 454000, China
Interests: non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) schemes; physical layer security; backscatter communication for internet of things; reconfigurable intelligent metasurfaces for 6G communications; ultra-reliable and low-latency communication (URLLC); unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communication; hardware-constrained communication systems; unmanned aerial vehicle communication; multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO); energy harvesting
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Waleed Ejaz

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Department of Electrical Engineering, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, ON, Canada
Interests: Internet of Things (IoT); Energy Harvesting; 5G and beyond Networks; Mobile Edge Computing
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming ever more pervasive in everyday life, connected to an ever-greater array of diverse physical objects. This brings a massive number of smart objects/devices together in integrated and interconnected heterogeneous networks, making the internet even more useful. In such systems, devices will sense and forward huge amounts of data, each concerning its local environment and resulting in the realisation of connected-device-oriented big data. Each of these devices and systems can communicate with other devices/objects, applications, and the cloud through networking technologies, and will be working on their own existing protocol stacks, architectures and data formats. This means that the communication between these devices will not be seamless, scalable, compatible and secure.

The purpose of this Special Issue is to bring together researchers and practitioners from many fields into a common platform, to report on the state-of-the-art in terms of research focused on energy optimization, machine and deep learning, cybersecurity, robotics and remote sensing at local to global scales, among many others, and exploring various effective, research and practice in IoT networks. The Special Issue also aims to reveal various emerging factors that affect the use of IoT technology in different fields such as industrial, healthcare, agriculture, smart cities, etc. The Special Issue welcomes high-quality survey papers. Areas of interest include, but are not necessarily limited to the following:

IoT applications and technologies for smart sensing fields and smart cities
Cybersecurity and privacy in IoT
Energy-aware hardware
Efficient resource management and energy harvesting
Advances in wireless sensor networks (WSN)
IoT data storage and processing
Deep learning applications
Machine learning models and applications for IoT
Software-defined networking (SDN) scalability and optimization
IoT network design and architecture
Interoperability of embedded IoT devices
Solutions to communicate heterogeneous embedded devices
Solutions to improve IoT big data networks (congestion, delay, priority, scheduling, scalability, etc.)
IoT and smart cities
Mobile cloud, things to cloud and IoT services
IoT and machine-to-machine (M2M) application areas
Big data mining and analytics for IoT networks.
Transmission protocols, models and algorithms in IoT-based WSNs
Data acquisition and integration in IoT-based WSNs
Data dissemination, routing protocols and algorithms design for IoT-based WSNs

Dr. Laith Farhan
Dr. Khaled Rabie
Prof. Dr. Xingwang Li
Dr. Waleed Ejaz
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Electronics is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue

Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
e-Book format: Special Issues with more than 10 articles can be published as dedicated e-books, ensuring wide and rapid dissemination.

Further information on MDPI's Special Issue polices can be found here.

Published Papers (8 papers)

Download All Papers

Order results

Result details

Show export options Show export options

Select all

Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

Jump to: Review

12 pages, 493 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Multiple-Intelligent Reflective Surfaces (Multi-IRSs)-Based NOMA System

by Ziad Qais Al-Abbasi, Laith Farhan and Raad S. Alhumaima

Electronics 2022, 11(23), 4045; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11234045 - 6 Dec 2022

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1963

Abstract

Recent research has introduced the notion of an Intelligent Reflective Surface (IRS) so as to boost the source–destination communication environment. IRS refers to a plane that consists of a number of passive elements that have a smaller size than the wavelength of the incident signal. Those elements use reflection to beam-form and to forward the incident radio signals toward the intended destination without power consumption. This article examines the performance of an IRS-based non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) system, and adopts the idea of using multiple IRS planes. It additionally investigates improving the performance of an IRS-NOMA combination through proposing various solutions that include optimizing the overall number of the IRS elements as a first step. After that, a closed form expression is derived for the considered IRS-NOMA system to determine the optimal number of the reflective elements. Secondly, the paper utilizes a new approach termed as multiple-IRS-based NOMA. This encompasses using multiple reflective planes (multi-IRS) along with IRS-NOMA, to boost the received signal characteristics, especially in situations where it is there a weak or no direct link between the source and the destination. An energy efficiency-spectral efficiency (EE-SE) trade-off is likewise presented, so as to have a complete view of the IRS-NOMA performance, along with the proposed solutions. The obtained simulation results depicts that IRS-NOMA is better than the existing orthogonal techniques. In addition, the results confirm that exploiting multiple IRSs offers a considerable gain in performance, as it enhances the conditions of the propagation environment. In specific, the considered case of a two IRS surfaces-assisted NOMA system offers higher performance levels than the case of a single IRS surface-assisted NOMA system. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Internet-to-Everything (I2X) Communications, Applications and Management in Future Networks)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

14 pages, 930 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Network Mobility Management Challenges, Directions, and Solutions: An Architectural Perspective

by Mohammed Al-Khalidi, Rabab Al-Zaidi and Mohammad Hammoudeh

Electronics 2022, 11(17), 2696; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11172696 - 28 Aug 2022

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2858

Abstract

Efficient mobility management solutions are essential to provide users with seamless connectivity and session continuity during movement. However, user mobility was not envisaged as one of the early Internet’s use cases due to the early adoption of destination based routing and the assumption that end-nodes are static. This has become a critical hinder for providing efficient mobility support. This paper presents the challenges, drivers, and solutions that aim to overcome the drawbacks of current mobility management approaches. Furthermore, it introduces a promising solution that builds on emerging path-based forwarding architectures that identify network links rather than end nodes. Delivery path information is stored inside the packet while forwarding is achieved by performing a simple set membership test rather than the current destination-based routing approach. Mobility management in these architectures simply requires partial recomputation of the delivery path allowing for efficient mobility support over an optimal path. Evaluation results show significant cost savings in terms of delivery paths and end-to-end packet delay when using a path forwarding architecture. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Internet-to-Everything (I2X) Communications, Applications and Management in Future Networks)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

16 pages, 5970 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Enhancing Virtual Real-Time Monitoring of Photovoltaic Power Systems Based on the Internet of Things

by Ghedhan Boubakr, Fengshou Gu, Laith Farhan and Andrew Ball

Electronics 2022, 11(15), 2469; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11152469 - 8 Aug 2022

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2609

Abstract

Solar power systems have been growing globally to replace fossil fuel-based energy and reduce greenhouse gases (GHG). In addition to panel efficiency deterioration and contamination, the produced power of photovoltaic (PV) systems is intermittent due to the dependency on weather conditions, causing reliability and resiliency issues. Monitoring system parameters can help in predicting faults in time for corrective action to be taken or preventive maintenance to be applied. However, classical monitoring approaches have two main problems: neither local nor centralized monitoring support distributed PV power systems nor provide remote access capability. Therefore, this paper presents an appraisal of a remote monitoring system of PV power generation stations by utilizing the Internet of Things (IoT) and a state-of-the-art tool for virtual supervision. The proposed system allows real-time measurements of all PV system parameters, including surrounding weather conditions, which are then available at the remote control center to check and track the PV power system. The proposed technique is composed of a set of cost-effective devices and algorithms, including a PV power conditioning unit (PCU); a sensor board for measuring the variables that influence PV energy production such as irradiance and temperature, using a communication module based on Wi-Fi for data transmission; and a maximum power point tracking (MPPT) controller for enhancing the efficiency of the PV system. For validating the proposed system, different common scenarios of PV panel conditions including different shading circumstances were considered. The results show that accurate, real-time monitoring with remote access capabilities can provide timely information for predicting and diagnosing the system condition to ensure continued stable power generation and management. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Internet-to-Everything (I2X) Communications, Applications and Management in Future Networks)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

22 pages, 4021 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Visual Cryptography-Based Watermarking Approach for the Detection and Localization of Image Forgery

by Moataz Z. Salim, Ali J. Abboud and Remzi Yildirim

Electronics 2022, 11(1), 136; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11010136 - 2 Jan 2022

Cited by 27 | Viewed by 3358

Abstract

The usage of images in different fields has increased dramatically, especially in medical image analysis and social media. Many risks can threaten the integrity and confidentiality of digital images transmitted through the internet. As such, the preservation of the contents of these images is of the utmost importance for sensitive healthcare systems. In this paper, the researchers propose a block-based approach to protect the integrity of digital images by detecting and localizing forgeries. It employs a visual cryptography-based watermarking approach to provide the capabilities of forgery detection and localization. In this watermarking scheme, features and key and secret shares are generated. The feature share is constructed by extracting features from equal-sized blocks of the image by using a Walsh transform, a local binary pattern and a discrete wavelet transform. Then, the key share is generated randomly from each image block, and the secret share is constructed by applying the XOR operation between the watermark, feature share and key share. The CASIA V 1.0 and SIPI datasets were used to check the performance and robustness of the proposed method. The experimental results from these datasets revealed that the percentages of the precision, recall and F1 score classification indicators were approximately 97% for these indicators, while the percentages of the TAF and NC image quality indicators were approximately 97% and 96% after applying several known image processing and geometric attacks. Furthermore, the comparative experimental results with the state-of-art approaches proved the robustness and noticeable improvement in the proposed approach for the detection and localization of image forgeries in terms of classification and quality measures. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Internet-to-Everything (I2X) Communications, Applications and Management in Future Networks)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

29 pages, 11838 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Device Identity-Based User Authentication on Electronic Payment System for Secure E-Wallet Apps

by Md Arif Hassan and Zarina Shukur

Electronics 2022, 11(1), 4; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11010004 - 21 Dec 2021

Cited by 16 | Viewed by 11781

Abstract

E-wallets are a modern electronic payment system technology that easily recognize consumer interest, making our transactions very convenient and efficient. E-wallets are intended to substitute the existing physical wallet, which may tell others something about us as a person. That is why using a physical wallet is a unique, personal experience that cannot be duplicated. A solution would be to replace the physical wallet with an e-wallet on an existing mobile device. The personal nature of the e-wallet is that it should be installed on a unique device. One of the fundamental protections against any illegal access to e-wallet application is through authentication. In particular, the fundamental authentication category used in an existing e-wallet is based on knowledge (i.e., what you know), ownership (i.e., what you have), and biometric (i.e., what you are) authentication, which are sometimes prone to security threats such as account takeover, sim swapping, app cloning, or know your customer verification attacks. The design of an e-wallet authentication on mobile device solution must take into consideration the intensity of the security. To address this problem, this study proposes a design of e-wallet apps with an extension security element that focuses on the device identity in the existing user authentication mechanism. This study covers four fundamental categories of authentication: password, one time password, fingerprints, and international mobile equipment identifier. Using IMEI limits an e-wallet to be in one specific device in one time; this brings it into line with the nature of a physical wallet. In addition, it will be ready to handle the mentioned threats above, which will ultimately result in the far more reliable to use of e-wallet apps. The proposed authentication design has two phases, a registration phase and an authentication phase. The proposed method has been developed and implemented based on an Android Studio Firebase real-time database management and PayPal. In addition, the complete design has been evaluated using functional requirement testing to see how closely it meets functionality requirements. The results obtained from functional testing show that the functionalities of the proposed method meet the requirements, and one cannot use a same account on two devices; hence, it is secure from attacks. The result also shows that the proposed method has no errors. Moreover, it has been shown that our proposed method has better security parameters in terms of the existing method. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Internet-to-Everything (I2X) Communications, Applications and Management in Future Networks)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

9 pages, 486 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Lightweight Cryptography for the Encryption of Data Communication of IoT Devices

by Ivan Sokol, Peter Hubinský and Ľuboš Chovanec

Electronics 2021, 10(21), 2567; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics10212567 - 20 Oct 2021

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2701

Abstract

We are at the beginning of the age of the Internet of things. Soon, we will be surrounded by smart homes, cities, and infrastructure. To achieve this vision, millions of devices will have to be able to communicate with each other. The demands for communication channels will increase significantly. An increasing amount of data will be transmitted with a requirement of minimal delay. The capacities of transmission systems can be quickly depleted. Building new communication channels is very time consuming but also financially demanding. To maximize existing infrastructure, we should pay attention today to the issue of transmitted data. One of the ways is to focus attention on reducing the volume of transmitted data. In this paper, we present a method of reducing the volume of data transmission between a server and an IoT device, focusing on the bandwidth, transmission security, and system resources of the IoT device. The required reduction is achieved by data compression and replacing the SSL/TLS cryptographic protocol with lightweight cryptography based on the Vernam cipher principle. The original SSL/TLS protocol is still used for device management needs only. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Internet-to-Everything (I2X) Communications, Applications and Management in Future Networks)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

Review

Jump to: Research

32 pages, 1434 KiB

Open AccessReview

Remote Big Data Management Tools, Sensing and Computing Technologies, and Visual Perception and Environment Mapping Algorithms in the Internet of Robotic Things

by Mihai Andronie, George Lăzăroiu, Oana Ludmila Karabolevski, Roxana Ștefănescu, Iulian Hurloiu, Adrian Dijmărescu and Irina Dijmărescu

Electronics 2023, 12(1), 22; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12010022 - 21 Dec 2022

Cited by 93 | Viewed by 5349

Abstract

The purpose of our systematic review was to inspect the recently published research on Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT) and harmonize the assimilations it articulates on remote big data management tools, sensing and computing technologies, and visual perception and environment mapping algorithms. The research problems were whether robotic manufacturing processes and industrial wireless sensor networks shape IoRT and lead to improved product quality by use of remote big data management tools, whether IoRT devices communicate autonomously regarding event modeling and forecasting by leveraging machine learning and clustering algorithms, sensing and computing technologies, and image processing tools, and whether smart connected objects, situational awareness algorithms, and edge computing technologies configure IoRT systems and cloud robotics in relation to distributed task coordination through visual perception and environment mapping algorithms. A Shiny app was harnessed for Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis (PRISMA) guidelines to configure the flow diagram integrating evidence-based gathered and processed data (the search outcomes and screening procedures). A quantitative literature review of ProQuest, Scopus, and the Web of Science databases was carried out throughout June and October 2022, with search terms including “Internet of Robotic Things” + “remote big data management tools”, “sensing and computing technologies”, and “visual perception and environment mapping algorithms”. Artificial intelligence and intelligent workflows by use of AMSTAR (Assessing the Methodological Quality of Systematic Reviews), Dedoose, DistillerSR, and SRDR (Systematic Review Data Repository) have been deployed as data extraction tools for literature collection, screening, and evaluation, for document flow monitoring, for inspecting qualitative and mixed methods research, and for establishing robust outcomes and correlations. For bibliometric mapping by use of data visualization, Dimensions AI was leveraged and with regards to layout algorithms, VOSviewer was harnessed. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Internet-to-Everything (I2X) Communications, Applications and Management in Future Networks)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

20 pages, 8868 KiB

Open AccessReview

An Overview of Medium Access Control and Radio Duty Cycling Protocols for Internet of Things

by Farhan Amin, Rashid Abbasi, Salabat Khan and Muhammad Ali Abid

Electronics 2022, 11(23), 3873; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11233873 - 23 Nov 2022

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2404

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) applications such as smart grids, smart agriculture, smart cities, and e-healthcare are popular nowadays. Generally, IoT end devices are extremely sensitive to the utilization of energy. The medium access control (MAC) layer is responsible for coordination and access of the IoT devices. It is essential to design an efficient MAC protocol for achieving high throughput in IoT. Duty cycling is a fundamental process in wireless networks and also an energy-saving necessity if nodes are required to operate for more than a few days. Numerous MAC protocols along with different objectives have been proposed for the IoT. However, to the best of our knowledge, only limited work has been performed dedicated to covering MAC and radio duty cycling (RDC). Therefore, in this study, we propose a systematic cataloging system and use if to organize the most important MAC and RDC proposals. In this catalog, each protocol has been categorized into main ideas, advantages, applications, limitations, innovative features, and potential future improvements. Our critical analysis is different from previous research studies, as we have fully covered all recent studies in this domain. We discuss challenges and future research directions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Internet-to-Everything (I2X) Communications, Applications and Management in Future Networks)

► Show Figures

Journal Menu

Journal Browser

Internet-to-Everything (I2X) Communications, Applications and Management in Future Networks

Share This Special Issue

Special Issue Editors

Special Issue Information

Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue

Published Papers (8 papers)

Research

Review

Further Information

Guidelines

MDPI Initiatives

Follow MDPI