Recent Advances in Wearable Sensing Technologies

Wearable sensing technologies are having a worldwide impact on the creation of novel business opportunities and application services that are benefiting the common citizen. By using these technologies, people have transformed the way they live, interact with each other and their surroundings, their daily routines, and how they monitor their health conditions. We review recent advances in the area of wearable sensing technologies, focusing on aspects such as sensor technologies, communication infrastructures, service infrastructures, security, and privacy. We also review the use of consumer wearables during the coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemic caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), and we discuss open challenges that must be addressed to further improve the efficacy of wearable sensing systems in the future

Challenges of Multi-Factor Authentication for Securing Advanced IoT (A-IoT) Applications

The unprecedented proliferation of smart devices together with novel communication, computing, and control technologies have paved the way for the Advanced Internet of Things~(A-IoT). This development involves new categories of capable devices, such as high-end wearables, smart vehicles, and consumer drones aiming to enable efficient and collaborative utilization within the Smart City paradigm. While massive deployments of these objects may enrich people's lives, unauthorized access to the said equipment is potentially dangerous. Hence, highly-secure human authentication mechanisms have to be designed. At the same time, human beings desire comfortable interaction with their owned devices on a daily basis, thus demanding the authentication procedures to be seamless and user-friendly, mindful of the contemporary urban dynamics. In response to these unique challenges, this work advocates for the adoption of multi-factor authentication for A-IoT, such that multiple heterogeneous methods - both well-established and emerging - are combined intelligently to grant or deny access reliably. We thus discuss the pros and cons of various solutions as well as introduce tools to combine the authentication factors, with an emphasis on challenging Smart City environments. We finally outline the open questions to shape future research efforts in this emerging field.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables. The work has been accepted for publication in IEEE Network, 2019. Copyright may be transferred without notice, after which this version may no longer be accessibl

A User Study of a Wearable System to Enhance Bystanders’ Facial Privacy

The privacy of users and information are becoming increasingly important with the growth and pervasive use of mobile devices such as wearables, mobile phones, drones, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Today many of these mobile devices are equipped with cameras which enable users to take pictures and record videos anytime they need to do so. In many such cases, bystanders’ privacy is not a concern, and as a result, audio and video of bystanders are often captured without their consent. We present results from a user study in which 21 participants were asked to use a wearable system called FacePET developed to enhance bystanders’ facial privacy by providing a way for bystanders to protect their own privacy rather than relying on external systems for protection. While past works in the literature focused on privacy perceptions of bystanders when photographed in public/shared spaces, there has not been research with a focus on user perceptions of bystander-based wearable devices to enhance privacy. Thus, in this work, we focus on user perceptions of the FacePET device and/or similar wearables to enhance bystanders’ facial privacy. In our study, we found that 16 participants would use FacePET or similar devices to enhance their facial privacy, and 17 participants agreed that if smart glasses had features to conceal users’ identities, it would allow them to become more popular

Cognitive Hyperconnected Digital Transformation

Cognitive Hyperconnected Digital Transformation provides an overview of the current Internet of Things (IoT) landscape, ranging from research, innovation and development priorities to enabling technologies in a global context. It is intended as a standalone book in a series that covers the Internet of Things activities of the IERC-Internet of Things European Research Cluster, including both research and technological innovation, validation and deployment. The book builds on the ideas put forward by the European Research Cluster, the IoT European Platform Initiative (IoT-EPI) and the IoT European Large-Scale Pilots Programme, presenting global views and state-of-the-art results regarding the challenges facing IoT research, innovation, development and deployment in the next years. Hyperconnected environments integrating industrial/business/consumer IoT technologies and applications require new IoT open systems architectures integrated with network architecture (a knowledge-centric network for IoT), IoT system design and open, horizontal and interoperable platforms managing things that are digital, automated and connected and that function in real-time with remote access and control based on Internet-enabled tools. The IoT is bridging the physical world with the virtual world by combining augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to support the physical-digital integrations in the Internet of mobile things based on sensors/actuators, communication, analytics technologies, cyber-physical systems, software, cognitive systems and IoT platforms with multiple functionalities. These IoT systems have the potential to understand, learn, predict, adapt and operate autonomously. They can change future behaviour, while the combination of extensive parallel processing power, advanced algorithms and data sets feed the cognitive algorithms that allow the IoT systems to develop new services and propose new solutions. IoT technologies are moving into the industrial space and enhancing traditional industrial platforms with solutions that break free of device-, operating system- and protocol-dependency. Secure edge computing solutions replace local networks, web services replace software, and devices with networked programmable logic controllers (NPLCs) based on Internet protocols replace devices that use proprietary protocols. Information captured by edge devices on the factory floor is secure and accessible from any location in real time, opening the communication gateway both vertically (connecting machines across the factory and enabling the instant availability of data to stakeholders within operational silos) and horizontally (with one framework for the entire supply chain, across departments, business units, global factory locations and other markets). End-to-end security and privacy solutions in IoT space require agile, context-aware and scalable components with mechanisms that are both fluid and adaptive. The convergence of IT (information technology) and OT (operational technology) makes security and privacy by default a new important element where security is addressed at the architecture level, across applications and domains, using multi-layered distributed security measures. Blockchain is transforming industry operating models by adding trust to untrusted environments, providing distributed security mechanisms and transparent access to the information in the chain. Digital technology platforms are evolving, with IoT platforms integrating complex information systems, customer experience, analytics and intelligence to enable new capabilities and business models for digital business

Internet of Things Architectures, Technologies, Applications, Challenges, and Future Directions for Enhanced Living Environments and Healthcare Systems: A Review

Internet of Things (IoT) is an evolution of the Internet and has been gaining increased attention from researchers in both academic and industrial environments. Successive technological enhancements make the development of intelligent systems with a high capacity for communication and data collection possible, providing several opportunities for numerous IoT applications, particularly healthcare systems. Despite all the advantages, there are still several open issues that represent the main challenges for IoT, e.g., accessibility, portability, interoperability, information security, and privacy. IoT provides important characteristics to healthcare systems, such as availability, mobility, and scalability, that o er an architectural basis for numerous high technological healthcare applications, such as real-time patient monitoring, environmental and indoor quality monitoring, and ubiquitous and pervasive information access that benefits health professionals and patients. The constant scientific innovations make it possible to develop IoT devices through countless services for sensing, data fusing, and logging capabilities that lead to several advancements for enhanced living environments (ELEs). This paper reviews the current state of the art on IoT architectures for ELEs and healthcare systems, with a focus on the technologies, applications, challenges, opportunities, open-source platforms, and operating systems. Furthermore, this document synthesizes the existing body of knowledge and identifies common threads and gaps that open up new significant and challenging future research directions.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Digitising the Industry Internet of Things Connecting the Physical, Digital and VirtualWorlds

This book provides an overview of the current Internet of Things (IoT) landscape, ranging from the research, innovation and development priorities to enabling technologies in a global context. A successful deployment of IoT technologies requires integration on all layers, be it cognitive and semantic aspects, middleware components, services, edge devices/machines and infrastructures. It is intended to be a standalone book in a series that covers the Internet of Things activities of the IERC - Internet of Things European Research Cluster from research to technological innovation, validation and deployment. The book builds on the ideas put forward by the European Research Cluster and the IoT European Platform Initiative (IoT-EPI) and presents global views and state of the art results on the challenges facing the research, innovation, development and deployment of IoT in the next years. The IoT is bridging the physical world with virtual world and requires sound information processing capabilities for the "digital shadows" of these real things. The research and innovation in nanoelectronics, semiconductor, sensors/actuators, communication, analytics technologies, cyber-physical systems, software, swarm intelligent and deep learning systems are essential for the successful deployment of IoT applications. The emergence of IoT platforms with multiple functionalities enables rapid development and lower costs by offering standardised components that can be shared across multiple solutions in many industry verticals. The IoT applications will gradually move from vertical, single purpose solutions to multi-purpose and collaborative applications interacting across industry verticals, organisations and people, being one of the essential paradigms of the digital economy. Many of those applications still have to be identified and involvement of end-users including the creative sector in this innovation is crucial. The IoT applications and deployments as integrated building blocks of the new digital economy are part of the accompanying IoT policy framework to address issues of horizontal nature and common interest (i.e. privacy, end-to-end security, user acceptance, societal, ethical aspects and legal issues) for providing trusted IoT solutions in a coordinated and consolidated manner across the IoT activities and pilots. In this, context IoT ecosystems offer solutions beyond a platform and solve important technical challenges in the different verticals and across verticals. These IoT technology ecosystems are instrumental for the deployment of large pilots and can easily be connected to or build upon the core IoT solutions for different applications in order to expand the system of use and allow new and even unanticipated IoT end uses. Technical topics discussed in the book include: • Introduction• Digitising industry and IoT as key enabler in the new era of Digital Economy• IoT Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda• IoT in the digital industrial context: Digital Single Market• Integration of heterogeneous systems and bridging the virtual, digital and physical worlds• Federated IoT platforms and interoperability• Evolution from intelligent devices to connected systems of systems by adding new layers of cognitive behaviour, artificial intelligence and user interfaces.• Innovation through IoT ecosystems• Trust-based IoT end-to-end security, privacy framework• User acceptance, societal, ethical aspects and legal issues• Internet of Things Application

Cognitive Hyperconnected Digital Transformation

Cognitive Hyperconnected Digital Transformation provides an overview of the current Internet of Things (IoT) landscape, ranging from research, innovation and development priorities to enabling technologies in a global context. It is intended as a standalone book in a series that covers the Internet of Things activities of the IERC-Internet of Things European Research Cluster, including both research and technological innovation, validation and deployment. The book builds on the ideas put forward by the European Research Cluster, the IoT European Platform Initiative (IoT-EPI) and the IoT European Large-Scale Pilots Programme, presenting global views and state-of-the-art results regarding the challenges facing IoT research, innovation, development and deployment in the next years. Hyperconnected environments integrating industrial/business/consumer IoT technologies and applications require new IoT open systems architectures integrated with network architecture (a knowledge-centric network for IoT), IoT system design and open, horizontal and interoperable platforms managing things that are digital, automated and connected and that function in real-time with remote access and control based on Internet-enabled tools. The IoT is bridging the physical world with the virtual world by combining augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to support the physical-digital integrations in the Internet of mobile things based on sensors/actuators, communication, analytics technologies, cyber-physical systems, software, cognitive systems and IoT platforms with multiple functionalities. These IoT systems have the potential to understand, learn, predict, adapt and operate autonomously. They can change future behaviour, while the combination of extensive parallel processing power, advanced algorithms and data sets feed the cognitive algorithms that allow the IoT systems to develop new services and propose new solutions. IoT technologies are moving into the industrial space and enhancing traditional industrial platforms with solutions that break free of device-, operating system- and protocol-dependency. Secure edge computing solutions replace local networks, web services replace software, and devices with networked programmable logic controllers (NPLCs) based on Internet protocols replace devices that use proprietary protocols. Information captured by edge devices on the factory floor is secure and accessible from any location in real time, opening the communication gateway both vertically (connecting machines across the factory and enabling the instant availability of data to stakeholders within operational silos) and horizontally (with one framework for the entire supply chain, across departments, business units, global factory locations and other markets). End-to-end security and privacy solutions in IoT space require agile, context-aware and scalable components with mechanisms that are both fluid and adaptive. The convergence of IT (information technology) and OT (operational technology) makes security and privacy by default a new important element where security is addressed at the architecture level, across applications and domains, using multi-layered distributed security measures. Blockchain is transforming industry operating models by adding trust to untrusted environments, providing distributed security mechanisms and transparent access to the information in the chain. Digital technology platforms are evolving, with IoT platforms integrating complex information systems, customer experience, analytics and intelligence to enable new capabilities and business models for digital business

Social, Private, and Trusted Wearable Technology under Cloud-Aided Intermittent Wireless Connectivity

There has been an unprecedented increase in the use of smart devices globally, together with novel forms of communication, computing, and control technologies that have paved the way for a new category of devices, known as high-end wearables. While massive deployments of these objects may improve the lives of people, unauthorized access to the said private equipment and its connectivity is potentially dangerous. Hence, communication enablers together with highly-secure human authentication mechanisms have to be designed.In addition, it is important to understand how human beings, as the primary users, interact with wearable devices on a day-to-day basis; usage should be comfortable, seamless, user-friendly, and mindful of urban dynamics. Usually the connectivity between wearables and the cloud is executed through the user’s more power independent gateway: this will usually be a smartphone, which may have potentially unreliable infrastructure connectivity. In response to these unique challenges, this thesis advocates for the adoption of direct, secure, proximity-based communication enablers enhanced with multi-factor authentication (hereafter refereed to MFA) that can integrate/interact with wearable technology. Their intelligent combination together with the connection establishment automation relying on the device/user social relations would allow to reliably grant or deny access in cases of both stable and intermittent connectivity to the trusted authority running in the cloud.The introduction will list the main communication paradigms, applications, conventional network architectures, and any relevant wearable-specific challenges. Next, the work examines the improved architecture and security enablers for clusterization between wearable gateways with a proximity-based communication as a baseline. Relying on this architecture, the author then elaborates on the social ties potentially overlaying the direct connectivity management in cases of both reliable and unreliable connection to the trusted cloud. The author discusses that social-aware cooperation and trust relations between users and/or the devices themselves are beneficial for the architecture under proposal. Next, the author introduces a protocol suite that enables temporary delegation of personal device use dependent on different connectivity conditions to the cloud.After these discussions, the wearable technology is analyzed as a biometric and behavior data provider for enabling MFA. The conventional approaches of the authentication factor combination strategies are compared with the ‘intelligent’ method proposed further. The assessment finds significant advantages to the developed solution over existing ones.On the practical side, the performance evaluation of existing cryptographic primitives, as part of the experimental work, shows the possibility of developing the experimental methods further on modern wearable devices.In summary, the set of enablers developed here for wearable technology connectivity is aimed at enriching people’s everyday lives in a secure and usable way, in cases when communication to the cloud is not consistently available