UNIT-V

ADVANTAGS OF
HEALTHCARE IOT
 ADVANTAGS OF HEALTHCARE IOT
 It has many advantages, healthcare IOT has some
risks too, which may be crucial in real-life applications
 The major advantages of healthcare IOT can be list as
follows:
 Real-Time: In healthcare sectors, different
components, such as the condition of the patients,
availability of doctors and beds in a hospital, medical
facilities with their monetary charges, can vary
dynamically with time
 In such a dynamic scenario, one of the important
characteristics of an IOT based healthcare system is
real-timelines
 A healthcare IOT system enables user, such as
doctors, end users, at the patient-side, and staff in a
health care unit, to receive real-time updates about
the healthcare IOT components
FIGURE 14.3 ADVANTAGES AND RISK IN
HEALTHCARE IOT
 Moreover, a healthcare IOT system can enable a doctor
to observe a patients health condition in real-time even
from a remote location, and can suggest the type of
care to be provided to the patient.
 On other hand, users at the patient-end can easily take
different decisions, such as where to take a patient-end
can easily take different decisions, such as where to
take a patient during critical situations
 Moreover, the staff in a healthcare unit are better aware
of the current situation of their unit, which includes the
number of patients admitted, availability of doctors, and
bed, total revenue of the unit, and other such
information
 Low-cost : Healthcare IOT systems facilitates users with
different services at low cost.
 For example, an authorized user can easily find the
availability of the beds in a hospital with simple Internet
connectivity and a web-browser based portal
 The user need not visit hospital physically to check
availability of beds and facilities.
 Moreover, multiple registered users can retrieve the
same information simultaneously
 Easy Management : Healthcare IOT is an infrastructure
that brings all its end users under the same umbrella to
provide healthcare services
 On the other hand, in such an infrastructure, the
management of numerous tangible and intangible entities
(such as users, medical devices, facilities, costs, and
security) is a challenging task.
 However, healthcare IOT facilitates easy and robust
management of all the entities
 Automatic Processing : A healthcare unit consists of
multiple subsystems, for which manual interventions are
required
 For exam , to register a patient with a hospital, the user may
be required to enter his/her details manually
 However, automatic processing features can remove such
manual interventions with a fingerprint sensor/device
 Healthcare IOT enables end-to-end automatic processing in
different units and also consolidates the information across
the whole chain: from a patients registration to discharge.
 Easy record-keeping : Different patients suffer from
different types of diseases
 A particular disease requires particular treatment, which
requires knowledge of a patients health history, along
with other details about them
 Therefore, the timely delivery of health data of the patient
to the doctor is important.
 In such a situation, the permanent storage pf the patients
health data along with their respective details is essential
 Similarly, for the smooth execution of the healthcare unit,
details of the staff with their daily activity in a healthcare
unit are also required for storage
 A healthcare unit must also track its condition and
financial transactions for further development of the unit
 A healthcare IOT enables the user to keep these records
in a safe environment and deliver them to the authorized
user as per requirement
 Moreover, these recorded data are accessible from any
part of the globe
 Easy diagnosis : Sometimes, for diagnosing a
disease, a huge chunk of prior data is required
 In a healthcare IOT , the diagnosis of the disease

becomes easier with the help of certain learning

mechanisms along with the availability of prior
datasets

 RISK IN HEALTHCARE IOT
 We discuss the various risk associated with a healthcare
IOT system as follows:
 Loss of connectivity : A healthcare IOT system consists
of different physiological sensors that sense and transmit
the sensed data to a centralized unit
 Moreover, continuous data transmission from the patient
is expected in a good healthcare system.
 Intermittent connectivity may result in data loss, which
may result in a life-threatening situations for the patient.
 Proper and continuous connectivity is essential in a
healthcare IOT
 Security : A healthcare IOT system consists the health
data of different patients associated with the system
 The healthcare system must keep the data confidential
 This data should not be accessible to any unauthorized
person
 On the other hand, different persons and devices are
associated with a healthcare IOT system
 In such a system, the risk of data tampering and
 Error: Data analytics helps a healthcare IOT system
to predict the patients condition and diagnosis of
diseases
 A huge amount of data needs to be fed into the

system in order to perform accurate analytics

 Moreover, the management of a huge amount of

data is a crucial task in any IOT-based system

 Particularly in the healthcare system, errors in data

may lead to misinterpretation of symptoms and lead

to the wrong diagnosis of the patients
 It is a challenging task to construct an error free

healthcare IOT architecture

 CASE STUDY : AMBUSENS SYSTEM
 AmbuSens System: In many developing countries,
patients need to be transferred from primary care to
tertiary care hospitals for proper diagnosis and
treatment
 During the transit the hospitals at both ends-the

referring one as well as the referred one – do not

have any information about the patients health
condition during transit
 In such situations, the hospitals are unable to suggest

any precautionary measures in the event of some

emergency during transit
 Consequently, many patients die during the transit

due to lack of proper suggestive care by medical

experts
 To overcome these shortcomings, the Smart Wireless

Applications and Networking (SWAN) laboratory at the

The primary objectives of the AmbuSens system are
summarised as follows:
 Digitization and standardization of the healthcare

data, which can be easily accessed by the registered

hospital authorities
 Real time monitoring of the patients who are in

transit from one hospital to another. At both

hospitals, doctors can access the patients health
conditions
 Accessibility by which multiple doctors can access

the patients health data at the same time

 Provision of confidentiality to the health data of the

patients in the cloud

 In the AmbuSens system, wireless physiological

sensor nodes are used, These sensor nodes make

the system flexible and easy to use
FIGURE 14.4 LAYERED ARCHITECTURE
PF AMBUSENS
 ARCHITECTURE : It is equipped with physiological
sensors along with a local hu
 These sensors sense the physiologial parameters

from the patents body and transmit those to a local

data processing unit (LDPU)
 The physiological sensors and LDPU from a wireless

body area network (WBAN)

 Further, this local hub forwards the physiological

data to the cloud for storing and analyzing the health

parameters
 Finally the data are accessed by different users

 The detailed layered architecture of the AmbuSens

system is depicted in the above Figure

 Layer1 : This layer consists of multiple WBANs
attached to patients body
 These WBANS acquire the physiological data from

the patient and transmit them to the upper layer

 The physiological sensors are heterogeneous, that is

each of these sensors senses different parameters of

the body
 Moreover, the physiological sensors require

calibration for acquiring the correct data from a

patients body
 Layer 1 takes care of the calibration of the

physiological sensor nodes

 Further, in order to deliver the patients physiological

data from the sensor node to the LDPU, it is essential

to forma proper WBAN
 The formation of WBAN takes place by connecting
multiple physiological sensor nodes to the LDPU so
that the sensor can transmit the data to the LDPU
simultaneously
 Layer2 : In the AmbuSens system, cloud computing

has an important role.

 Layer 2 is responsible handling the cloud-related

functions
 From Layer1, WBANs attached to the different

patients deliver data to the cloud end

 The Cloud is used for the long-term analysis and

storage of data in the AmbuSens system

 Moreover, the previous patient-specific analysis

 A huge volume of health data is produced by the

WBANs, which are handled by the cloud with the

help of big data analytics for providing real-time
 Layer 3 : In the AmbuSens system, the identify of
the patients remains anonymous
 An algorithm is designed to generate a dynamic

hash value for each patient in order to keep the

patients identity anonymous
 Moreover, in the AmbuSens system, at different

time instances, a new hash value is generated for

the patients
 The entire hashing mechanism of the AmbuSens is

performed in this layer

 Layer 4 : The user simply register into the system

and use it as per requirement

 Hardware : In the AmbuSens system, a variety of
hardware components are used such as sensors,
communication units, and other computing device
 Sensors: The sensors used in the AmbuSens system

are non-invasive
 The description of the sensors used for forming the

WBAN in the AmbuSens system are as follows:

 (i) Optical Pulse Sensing Probe: It senses the

photoplethysmogram (PPG) signal and transmits it to

a GSR expansion module.
 Typically, PPG signals are sensed from the ear lobe,

fingers, or other location of the human body

 Further, the GSR expansion module transfers the

sensed data to a device in real-time

 (ii) Electrocardiogram (ECG) unit and sensor :
The ECG module used in AmbuSens is in the form of
a kit, which contain ECG electrodes, biophysical 9”
leads, biophysical 18” leads, alcohol swabs, and
wrist strap
 Typically, the ECG sensor measures the pathway of

electrical impulses through the heart to sense the

hearts response to physical exertion and other
features affecting cardiac health
 (iii) Electromyogram (EMG) sensor: This sensor

is used to analyze and measure the biomechanics of

the human body
 Particularly, the EMG sensor is used to measure

different electrical activity related to muscle

contractions, it also assesses nerve conduction, and
muscle response in injured tissue
 (iv) Temperature sensor : The body temperature of
patients changes with the condition of the body.
 Therefore, a temperature sensor is included in the

AmbuSens system, which can easily be placed on

the body of the patient
 (v) Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) sensor: The GSR

sensor is used for measuring the change in

electrical characteristics of the skin
 Local Data Processing Unit (LDPU) : In AmbuSens,

all the sensors attached to the human body sense

and transmit the sensed data to centralized device,
which is called an LDPU
 An LDPU is a small processing board with limited

computation capabilities
 The connectivity between the sensors and the LDPU

follows a single-hop star topology

 The LDPU is programmed in such a way that it can
receive the physiological data from multiple sensor
nodes, simultaneously
 Further, it transmits the data to the cloud for long-

term storage and heavy processing

 Communication Module : Each sensor node consists

of a Bluetooth (IEEE 802.15.1 standard ) module

 The communication between the sensor nodes and

the LDPU takes place with the help of Bluetooth,

which supports a maximum communication range of
10 meters in line-of-sight
 The LDPU delivers the data to the cloud with 3G/4G

communication
 Front End : In the AmbuSens system, three actors-

doctors, paramedic/nurse, and patient are able to

participate and use the services
 The web interface is designed as per the
requirements of the actors of the system
 Each of the actors has an option to log in and access

the system
 The confidentiality of a patient and their

physiological data is important in a healthcare

system
 Therefore, the system provides different scopes for

data accessibility based on the category of an actor

 For example the detailed health data of a patient is

accessible only to the assigned doctor

 These data may not be required for the nurse

 Therefore, a nurse is unable to access the same set

of data a doctor can accesses

 The system provides the flexibility to a patient to log

in details
 Therefore , in AmbuSens, the database is designed
in an efficient way such that it can deliver the
customized data to the respective actor
 Each of the users has to register with the system to

avail of the servie of the AmbuSens

 Therefore, in this system, the registration process is

also designed in a customized fashion, that is, the

details of a user to be entered into the registration
form is different for different actors
 For example a doctor must enter his/her registration

number in the registration form

 EVOLUTION OF NEW IOT PARADIGMS
 IOT has found scope in diverse operations, which has
led to the origin of several new paradigms based on
the nature of data sources/devices/peripherals and
their corresponding applications
 Some of these areas and the respective IOTs are

explained as follows
 Internet of battlefield things (IoBT) : This category is

responsible for connecting soldiers with IOT

 Researchers in IoBT aims to develop a suite with

embedded biometric and location sensors for soldiers

 Data from these sensors allows the soldiers to keep

track of the troops and also share information

regarding foes; it makes the whole team situational
aware Moreover, smart analysis using machine
learning algorithms opens the scope for designing
superior tactics in real-time
 However, IoBT also has its challenges, mostly
rewardingly energy constraints and data rates
 Soldiers need to transfer sizeable data with
minimum delay, which mandates the need for
optimized consumption of bandwidth and battery.
 Finally IoBT systems must be robust and durable

enough to withstand the rigors of sustained outdoor

and battlefield use
 Internet of vehicles (IoV): This is category of IoT is

responsible for communications among smart

connected vehicles, usually through vehicular ad-
hoc networks (VANETs)
 Smart vehicles consists of a myriad of sensors that

include cameras, GPs, infrared and others

 IoV facilitates these vehicles to communicate with

other vehicles, its drivers, roadside units (RSU), and

other mobile and fixed infrastructures
 Intuitively, IoV supports intra-vehicle, vehicle-to-
vehicle (V2V), vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I), vehicle
to cloud (V2C), and vehicle to pedestrian (v2v)
communication
 Although IoV faces a combination of challenges

related to mobility, changing states, and dynamic

signal quality, it has several advantages
 Developers design IoVs such that they are

environmentally safe, improve road safety, enhance

user convenience, as well as increase revenue of
manufacturers
 Internet of underwater things (IoUT) : This category

of IOT aims to interconnect underwater sensors and

communication infrastructure with the terrestrial
internet. They are also much smaller in size than the
normal sensors and support wireless communication
based on acoustic signals,
 However, IoUT has significant lacuna in its
communication model as radio waves do not fare
well, underwater
 Although developers use sizable antennas for the

signals to penetrate through water, the signals suffer

high attenuation and absorption
 Underwater, the signals also suffer from high

propagation delays and bit error rates

 Optical signals also seem impractical underwater

due to the high absorption rate

 Additionally, they can only cover sort distance

 Researchers however, aggregate data from the

sensors situated underwater to a sink node at the

surface of the water, which forward it to the
terrestrial base stations in a multi-hop manner
 The sink-nodes in IoUT contains both acoustic as well

as radio antenna for its purpose

 Internet of Drones (IoD): IoT operates toward
enhancing user experience while minimizing user
intervention
 IoD is the category concerned with the deployment

and management of unmanned ariel vehicles

 Service providers use IoD for various applications

such as package delivery, wildlife surveillance,

rescue operations, agriculture, photography, and
others
 However, developers need to deal with flying the

drones in controlled/uncontrolled airspace and

dictate navigation coordinates
 For the seamless operation of IoD, developers need

to fuse air traffic control netwoks, cellular networks,

automation, and the Internet
 INTERNET OF SPACE (IOSPACE)
 This category of IoT relies on low earth orbit (LEO)
satellites for providing seamless connectivity services
over uneven demographic areas
 However, such satellite have disadvantages concerning
development and deployment cost, and loss due to failure
in orbit
 These satellites have the potential to reduce network
latencies significantly
 Researchers have been recently working hard towards the
deployment of small cubic satellites called CubeSats to
overcome the challenges mentioned here
 In addition to these difficulties, satellites also present
challenges related to tracking, synchronising, and handoff
 We expect that technologies such as software defined
networks (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV)
will play a major role in addressing these issues
 INTERNET OF SERVICES (IOS)
 This category is specific for manufacturers and service
providers, that is, the industries
 With IoS, manufactures bring hardware and software
under one umbrella
 For instance, a car manufacturer builds a car with
installed sensors
 They later release software updates over the Internet to
enhance user experience
 The manufacturers may also charge for the upgrades,
which generates revenue for the company
 Additionally, this model also paves the way for crypto-
currency as a payment method
 Applications of IoS extends to factory monitoring, sensing
and actuation of factory units, and generation of remote
alarms in case of emergency
 IoS also reaches out to smart phones that already have
multiple sensors. Company use these sensors and
develop internet-enabled apps for users
 INTERNET OF PEOPLE (IOP)
 The internet contains a plethora of profiles
representing people and interconnected links as
relations among them
 The IoP interconnects these peer-to-peer networks

 Researchers in social computing extensively use

social graphs for representation and interfaces

 The IoP supporting applications facilitate direct

device-to-device, people-to-people, as well as

company-to-people communications
 IoP further opens scope for crypto-currency as a

means to transfer incentives/payments in return for

services
 Such structures enable smooth interaction among

service providers and consumers, IoP also provides a

platform for carrying out transparent and secure
 INTERNET OF NANO THINGS (IONT)
 The interrelated systems in IoT, which usually include
combinations of sensors and actuators, can be
miniaturized to tiny devices with dimensions in the
scale of nanometer
 These devices are application specific and occupy

minimal space, they include miniaturized sensors in

vehicles, as well as those responsible for monitoring
the environment
 Communication at the nano-scale is rendered possible

in two ways
 1. Electromagnetic (EM) and 2. Chemotaxis

communications
 Electromagnetic communications at the nano-scale

typically use the Terahertz band of the spectrum

 However, this results in significant power issues, a

limited range of communication, and severe

 Parallelly, the use of Chemotaxis as a means of
communication is achieved through exploiting the
population dynamics of bacteria and viruses
 Messages are passed in the form of chemical

signatures and molecules, which are often facilitated

by specifically cultured bacteria and viruses
 Nano-scale IoT also finds scope in healthcare, where

researchers are working actively in fighting diseases

with the help of programmable bacteria/viruses
/nanoparticles
 However, designing such nanodevices is non-trival

task, which the developers need to study rigorously


 INTERNET OF EVERYTHING (IOE)
 The IoE comprises four pillars and concerns itself
with the communication among them. These four
pillars are people, data, processes and things
 (i) People : Communication among people is

analogous to the IoP mentioned earlier

 (ii) Data : Data from sensors are analyzed for

interfacing and making decisions

 (iii) Process : Information is delivered to the

concerned people/machine/infrastructure
 (iv) Things : This is analogous to the things in IOT

 The main difference between IoT and IoE is that IoT

only concerns itself with the non-human aspects of

technology, while IoE consists of all the other factors,
which include machine-to-people (M2P) and
technology assisted peer to peer (P2) interactions in
addition to the features of IOT
 CHALLENGES ASSOCIATED WITH IOT
 IoT has numerous advantages up its sleeve, However,
with the advent of these technologies and heterogeneity
of the nature of devices, IOT also has several challenges
that researchers are trying to overcome actively
 In this section we mention a few such challenges:
 Mobility : IoT supports unconditional M2M communication
 The devices in the system, given their heterogeneity
concerning configuration and usage, that is pedestrians,
vehicles, cycles, drones, robots, and others, have diverse
mobility patterns
 These patterns cannot be precisely predicted and need to
be stochastically analyzed, which makes efforts towards
seamless connectivity and quality of service tricky
 Developers need to device ways to make dynamic
decisions on the handoff, synchronization, and others
such issues efficiently
 Tasks such as allocation of identifiers to mobile devices,
handoff strategies, coverage estimation, path planning,
mobility prediction, and others are some of the research
domains which are directly associated with addressing this
challenges
 Addressing :
 With the advent of IoT and its advantages, its adoption by
the people as well as industries are growing at an
uncontrollable rate
 Such an exponential increase in the number of devices
exhausts the number of available IP addresses, leading to IP
conflicts
 In addition to that there are very few standards or industry
recommended schemes toward addressing IoT
administrators.
 Recently, IoT has already seen a paradigm shift from IPv4 to
IPv6 addressing schmes in some industries but it is yet to be
popularly adopted by the masses
 Typical research challaenges in this domain include
 POWER : IoT devices are usually resource-
constrained concerning power and computational
capability
 These devices need to last for a long time

irrespective of their limited battery power

 Such limitations call for green computing schemes

for smart harvesting and consumption of power

 Alternatively, it also calls for new hardware designs

that consume minimum power for operation

 Various upcoming research solutions focus on

developing high-density batteries/cells for enabling

long-term use of IoT systems
 Research in this domain includes the design of low

power processors and hardware, design of low

power consuming computation techniques and
algorithms, energy harvesting, alternative sources
of energy and others
 Heterogeneous connectivity : IoT is a vast collection
of heterogeneous networks made up of long-range as
well as short range connectivity technologies
 Some of the integrated sectors in IT also rely on their

proprietary connectivity solutions

 The proprietary nature of connectivity is commonly

encountered in applications such as military, heavy

industries, and others
 Heterogeneity in connectivity can be significantly

challenging to manage as often connectivity devices may

be vendor-specific, industry-specific, or even task-specific
 Some antennas may be more powerful than the others,

or may be close to one another, inducting high

interferences
 Coverage is also an issue in such environments

 Additionally as the devices move away from access

points, they may lose contact midway, which is an open

 For example, the majority of connectivity
technologies are still present in industries are wired
 Despite the high maintenance costs and physical

space occupancy, wired solutions are considered

more reliable and secure for industrial uses
 Additionally, legacy connectivity technologies are still

present in industries and they are majorly wired and

mostly analogues
 These industries and industrial systems need to be

connected to the Internet

 The main challenge in such situations is the

amalgamation or provision of a different vendor

specific devices and protocols
 Typically research in this domain consists of work on

protocol conversions, bandwidth allocation, task

offloading, big-data analytics, cloud computing and
others
 Communication range : The wide expanse and reach of
IoT have led to some of its major challenges, addressing
which have given IoT some powerful new solutions
 The usefulness of IoT has led to its solutions being
deployed in areas with proper connectivity as well as areas,
especially remote ones, where there is barely any
connectivity
 Both of these scenarios have their own unique set of
challenges, which need to be addressed separately
 For example, the deployment of low power wireless IoT
solutions in urban area tend to frequently encounter
interference and noise due to the presence of other
powerful wireless solutions operating at the same
frequency spectrum
 In contrast, the deployment of IoT solutions in remote
places such as forests and rural areas often do not have the
pt e network infrastructure to provide these solutions with
basic Internet access
 The rise of IoD in providing communication coverage
to such areas through relaying of signals, enabling
backhaul network access, and others is a prime
example of a powerful, yet economical solution rising
due to the communication demand-supply gap in IoT
 Security : Due to the lack of powerful and unified

security standards in IoT and an increasing number of

devices, IoT is vulnerable to threats from malicious
attackers and bots
 Although encryption seems to be a logical answer in

this scenario, a significant chunk of these devices lack

the storage and computational capabilities required for
supporting complex mathematical operations, which
come with encryption
 Some manufacturers put a built in password for

security, which is temporarily helpful in a few limited

scenarios
 However, attackers have enough resources to crack such
default passwords, which compromises the whole system
 IoT is not restricted to low-power devices, and even so,

these low-power devices, and even so these low-power

devices eventually connect to remote platforms such as a
server/fog/cloud
 Gaining access to the network or the remote infrastructure

by compromising the low-power devices is a reality in the

present-day technological realm
 Vulnerability to attacks such as phishing, flooding, denial

of service, man-in-the-middle attacks and others can

easily trigger a chain of anomalies, which may bring down
a whole network or enterprise
 Typical research in this domain includes works on

hardware-level security, processor/chip-level security,

physically unclonable functions (PUFs), network security,
cryptography, block chains, crypto currency, encryption
and others
 Device Size : Manufacturers usually design IoT
devices for enhancing user experience at low cost
 Further, such devices are usually small in size,

equipped with unique IDs and wireless

communication antennas
 The low cost and size make it difficult to incorporate

processing power ad storage in the device

 It also causes space concerns to introduce a battery

 Finally, these devices end up being resource-

constrained in terms of operational capability,

battery power, and storage
 Typically research in this aspect of IoT includes nano

and microelectronics, photonics, device fabrication,

and the new and upcoming paradigm of quantum
computing
 Interoperability : IoT devices serve a myriad of
applications with numerous manufacturers deploying
multiple units
 These devices with different purposes and different

manufacturers need to interact with one another to

work in harmony
 With the increasing number of devices and no

universal standards, researchers are working actively

to enable the devices to achieve common goals
automatically
 EMERGING PILLARS OF IOT
 Emerging Pillars of IoT :IoT is a massive paradigm
with far-reaching implications across vastly
interdisplinary domains.
 However, some standalone paradigm, are nowadays

commonly associated as well as to IoT. Some of the

emerging pillars of IoT are as follows:
 Big Date : Manufacturers and users are deploying

numerous IoT devices while serving a plethora of

applications
 Along with these IoT devices and applications, the

rate of data generation also increases, leading to

large datasets (petabytes or gigabytes)
 These data may be structured/unstructured,

developers need to analyze these data for finding

hidden patterns and generating inferences.
 For comprehending these inferences and decisions,
developers are turning toward big data analytics
 The network traffic or data is classified as big data if

it satisfies specific characteristics of 1) volume 2)

variety 3) value 4) velocity and 5) veracity
 Big data analytics has the potential to process data

from IoT devices in real time and store them using

various storage schemes
 Once acquired this voluminous data can be used for

studying patterns in network behaviour, usage,

customer experiences, mobility, connectivity issues,
among many other interesting features



 Cloud/fog/edge computing : Commercial device
manufactures design IoT devices and solutions for
providing affordable services to the general public
 Specific use cases of IoT such as those for industrial,

militaries and other such applications are also catered to

mostly through proprietary solutions
 However, the sheer volume and variety of data that is

available for further processing needs powerful resources

and infrastructures
 Although a significant number of IoT devices are smaller in

size and resource constrained, their massive scale use in

various applications eventually leads to a formidable
amount of information to be processed and handled
 Due to such limitations these IoT devices need to depend

on external platforms, particularly cloud/fog/edge

computing schemes to address their processing issues and
generating meaningful information from the gathered data
 The choice of platform is application dependent that is
while cloud computing has unlimited resources, fog/edge
computing reduces operational latencies significantly
 Starting as a research paradigm these domains have

gathered worldwide acceptance and are mostly included

in mainstream IoT architectures and applications
 5G and beyond : The launch of 3G technology

facilitated robust and speedy voice, text, and data

services to the users
 4G was similar to 3G but with a higher data rate,

enabling its users to adopt video-based communication

and making it a new normal in the communication
industry
 The new 5G technologies provide services with much

higher speeds as they focus on providing ubiquitous

high-speed connectivity to all device types
 Features such as downloading full HD movies in a matter

of seconds characterize this technology

 5G technology features a fusion of high data rates with
low latencies, ubiquitous coverage and smart
infrastructures to support real-time applications,
enabling remote monitoring and control
 Researchers envision 5G as a driving force for IoT

 The features of 5G have also started the race for

beyond 5G technologies and paradigms

 Envisioned as operating in the Terahertz band of the

frequency spectrum beyond 5G technologies are being

speculated to have data rates in the tune of Gbps
 Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine learning (ML):

 Owing to the deployment of numerous IoT devices and

applications, the complexity and size of data over and

beyond the networks have increased significantly
 The IoT data may or may not be structured and often

consists of hidden patterns, which have to be derived

through data processing and statistical inferences
 Additionally the need for automation in a significant
chunk of IoT devices and applications is another
compelling reason for the rapid emergence and
adoption of AI/ML with IoT
 AI/ML has been used for extracting information from

raw data, be it from agricultural sensors, smart home

sensors, or network security analyzers
 AI/ML tools are mostly data driven.

 However, new methods in these domains are rapidly

cropping up methods which do not always have to

rely on voluminous data for generating inferences or
predicting trends
 COGNITIVE COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
 This domain is yet another upcoming pillar of IoT,
which although focused only on the communication
aspects, has the potential to revolutionize the existing
IoT architectures and the way data and signals are
handled in a network
 Cognitive communication networks or simply,

cognitive networks are capable of sensing the present

networks parameters, conditions, and plans
 Based on the sensed information, the cognition

engine can devise pathways and strategies for best

achieving the end goals for a certain task
 For example an IoT node transmits data to a remote

server through a fixed gateway, which has access to

the Internet
 However, this gateway also servers 10 000 others

such IoT nodes

 The situations undoubtedly raises the issues of
congestion at the gateways due to large waiting
messages queues
 As the traditional IoT on networks is highly

unbalanced and unevenly distributed

 This uneven traffic load also results in long waiting

times packet drops, and noise in the data being

transmitted over the network
 Now consider a smart network which can sense

delays and queues in a certain path and has the

autonomy to choose an alternative path to facilitate
data transmission between the IoT node and the
remote server
 This mechanism can be considered as a rudimentary

example of cognitive network

 NETWORK FUNCTION VIRUTALIZATION
(NFV)
 NFV is an interesting and practical concept, which
proposes the virtualization of major network elements
such that software virtualizes network hardware by
providing the same functionalities and added features.
 The concept of NFV arose due to the difficulty of

reconfiguration (both changing and upgrading)

installed network infrastructure
 Physically going to every network element for changes

(Updates, software patches) can be a significant

challenge in terms of time, money, and human
resources, especially for enterprise grade networks
consisting of tens of thousands of network elements
 NFV utilizes the concept of virtualization to provide

services similar to network elements through standard

services
 Software defined networks (SDN) : IoT environments
are highly dynamic concerning mobility and the
changing states of the access points
 With the implementation of fog and edge computing,

the states of the services providing nodes will change;

so will the users
 For the seamless transition of data routes, self-

organisation, configuration optimization and smart

transmissions, SDN has emerged as a popular choice
 SDN reduces the complexity of traditional networks by

introducing a centralized control structure through the

separation of control and data planes of network
elements
 A centralized view of the whole network ushers in the

benefits of better controllability, networks stability, and

increased efficiencies
 It is to be noted that SDN and NFV are separate
 NFV simply virtualizes the network elements in a
traditional network, such that the core operating
procedure remains the same
 In contrast, SDN introduces an entirely new ways of

handling network traffic by separating the control and

data planes to provide a centralized architecture for
the whole network
 Phantom networks :

 Phantom networks paradigm strives to develop

intangible communication infrastructure

 Being a relatively new paradigm, which is still under

development this paradigm relies on the Terahertz

(THz) band for communication between aerially
diffused nano-relays
 The aerial nano-relays are deployed through ground-
based pumps which spray the water suspended mixture
of the nano-communication relays in the deployment
areas
 However, unlike traditional network infrastructures, this

paradigm is prone to the effects of wind, rain, humidity

 Additionally the factors of node density in an area to

ensure reliable throughput and quality of service and

setting time of these aerially suspended nodes play
decisive roles in deciding the network lifetime and
performance of the network
 This paradigm is highly interdisciplinary and requires the

operational knowledge of multiple domains such as

nanotechnology, communication, networking, fluid
dynamics, and other
 Typical application areas included military

communication and communication for emergency

response during disaster management
END OF UNIT V