How 5G wireless (and concomitant technologies) will revolutionize healthcare?

The need to have equitable access to quality healthcare is enshrined in the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which defines the developmental agenda of the UN for the next 15 years. In particular, the third SDG focuses on the need to “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages”. In this paper, we build the case that 5G wireless technology, along with concomitant emerging technologies (such as IoT, big data, artificial intelligence and machine learning), will transform global healthcare systems in the near future. Our optimism around 5G-enabled healthcare stems from a confluence of significant technical pushes that are already at play: apart from the availability of high-throughput low-latency wireless connectivity, other significant factors include the democratization of computing through cloud computing; the democratization of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cognitive computing (e.g., IBM Watson); and the commoditization of data through crowdsourcing and digital exhaust. These technologies together can finally crack a dysfunctional healthcare system that has largely been impervious to technological innovations. We highlight the persistent deficiencies of the current healthcare system and then demonstrate how the 5G-enabled healthcare revolution can fix these deficiencies. We also highlight open technical research challenges, and potential pitfalls, that may hinder the development of such a 5G-enabled health revolution

Technologies and solutions for location-based services in smart cities: past, present, and future

Location-based services (LBS) in smart cities have drastically altered the way cities operate, giving a new dimension to the life of citizens. LBS rely on location of a device, where proximity estimation remains at its core. The applications of LBS range from social networking and marketing to vehicle-toeverything communications. In many of these applications, there is an increasing need and trend to learn the physical distance between nearby devices. This paper elaborates upon the current needs of proximity estimation in LBS and compares them against the available Localization and Proximity (LP) finding technologies (LP technologies in short). These technologies are compared for their accuracies and performance based on various different parameters, including latency, energy consumption, security, complexity, and throughput. Hereafter, a classification of these technologies, based on various different smart city applications, is presented. Finally, we discuss some emerging LP technologies that enable proximity estimation in LBS and present some future research areas

Enabling Communication Technologies for Automated Unmanned Vehicles in Industry 4.0

Within the context of Industry 4.0, mobile robot systems such as automated guided vehicles (AGVs) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are one of the major areas challenging current communication and localization technologies. Due to stringent requirements on latency and reliability, several of the existing solutions are not capable of meeting the performance required by industrial automation applications. Additionally, the disparity in types and applications of unmanned vehicle (UV) calls for more flexible communication technologies in order to address their specific requirements. In this paper, we propose several use cases for UVs within the context of Industry 4.0 and consider their respective requirements. We also identify wireless technologies that support the deployment of UVs as envisioned in Industry 4.0 scenarios.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, 1 tabl

Efficient energy management for the internet of things in smart cities

The drastic increase in urbanization over the past few years requires sustainable, efficient, and smart solutions for transportation, governance, environment, quality of life, and so on. The Internet of Things offers many sophisticated and ubiquitous applications for smart cities. The energy demand of IoT applications is increased, while IoT devices continue to grow in both numbers and requirements. Therefore, smart city solutions must have the ability to efficiently utilize energy and handle the associated challenges. Energy management is considered as a key paradigm for the realization of complex energy systems in smart cities. In this article, we present a brief overview of energy management and challenges in smart cities. We then provide a unifying framework for energy-efficient optimization and scheduling of IoT-based smart cities. We also discuss the energy harvesting in smart cities, which is a promising solution for extending the lifetime of low-power devices and its related challenges. We detail two case studies. The first one targets energy-efficient scheduling in smart homes, and the second covers wireless power transfer for IoT devices in smart cities. Simulation results for the case studies demonstrate the tremendous impact of energy-efficient scheduling optimization and wireless power transfer on the performance of IoT in smart cities

Internet of Things-aided Smart Grid: Technologies, Architectures, Applications, Prototypes, and Future Research Directions

Traditional power grids are being transformed into Smart Grids (SGs) to address the issues in existing power system due to uni-directional information flow, energy wastage, growing energy demand, reliability and security. SGs offer bi-directional energy flow between service providers and consumers, involving power generation, transmission, distribution and utilization systems. SGs employ various devices for the monitoring, analysis and control of the grid, deployed at power plants, distribution centers and in consumers' premises in a very large number. Hence, an SG requires connectivity, automation and the tracking of such devices. This is achieved with the help of Internet of Things (IoT). IoT helps SG systems to support various network functions throughout the generation, transmission, distribution and consumption of energy by incorporating IoT devices (such as sensors, actuators and smart meters), as well as by providing the connectivity, automation and tracking for such devices. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey on IoT-aided SG systems, which includes the existing architectures, applications and prototypes of IoT-aided SG systems. This survey also highlights the open issues, challenges and future research directions for IoT-aided SG systems