IEEE Internet of Things Magazine (M-IoT) publishes peer-reviewed articles on end-to-end IoT solutions. M-IoT articles are written by and for practitioners and researchers interested in practice and applications, such as corporate engineers working to design and deploy IoT applications every day. The technical focus of M-IoT is the multi-disciplinary, systems nature of IoT solutions. Additionally, M-IoT addresses important non-technical aspects of IoT such as privacy concerns and regulatory affairs that must be understood to successfully deploy and operate real-world IoT systems. M-IoT also communicates with readers about the activities of the IoT Initiative and contains regular sections to help the practitioner negotiate the IoT landscape: tutorials, publication reviews, product reviews, and information on IoT resources and events. M-IoT is a forum for practitioners to share experiences, develop best practices, and establish guiding principles for technical, operational and business success.

Special Issue on Ambient Internet of Things and Near-Zero Energy Communications
Día de Entrega: 2024-08-15

In recent years, Internet of Things (IoT) has attracted much attention aiming at interconnecting more ‘things’ for various applications to gain productivity, efficiency, and sustainability. In today’s IoT networks, IoT devices commonly rely on batteries with a finite lifespan that needs to be replaced or recharged manually. Given the expanding number of IoT devices, the necessity for battery replacement or recharge significantly escalates maintenance costs, environmental concerns, and even safety risks for some use cases. This will challenge the widespread adoption and proliferation of IoT solutions. For the sustainable development of IoT ecosystems, a new paradigm of Ambient IoT has emerged to actualize near-zero energy communications. Ambient IoT are battery-less devices (or with limited energy storage, yet no need for replacement or recharge) with ultra-low complexity and ultra-low power consumption to enable a variety of new applications.

Recognizing the potential of low-cost, low-complexity, and battery-free IoT devices, 3GPP, IEEE, and Bluetooth have recently explored the feasibility of integrating such devices into their ecosystems. Key enabling technologies driving Ambient IoT are energy harvesting, ambient backscattering communications, and low-power computing. Specifically, ambient backscattering communications, which rely on passive reflection and modulation of an incident radio-frequency (RF), makes signal modulation and transmission viable, even when operating from limited harvested energy. Despite the potentials, the implementation of Ambient IoT still faces significant challenges. These include ensuring a stable power supply from intermittently harvested energy sources, meeting communication needs with limited harvested energy, facilitating the connection of a large number of Ambient IoT devices, and addressing concerns related to user privacy and security.

This Special Issue (SI) endeavors to explore pioneering advancements, innovations, and challenges in creating ambient IoT devices that operate with minimal to zero external power sources. By tapping into ambient energy and leveraging energy-efficient technologies, such as backscatter communications, ambient IoT holds the promise of revolutionizing the landscape of connected and sustainable smart environments.

Topics of interest may include, but are not limited to:

- Exploring New Air Interfaces, i.e., Frequency Bands, Waveforms, Modulation Schemes, and Uplink/Downlink Multiple Access Protocols, for Ambient IoT.
- Low-complexity Signal Detection and Channel Coding for Ambient IoT.
- AI/Machine Learning Applications for Ambient IoT.
- Lightweight Communications and Signalling Protocols for Ambient IoT.
- Optimization of Communication Protocols for Ambient IoT.
- Architecture Enhancement for Ambient IoT devices.
- Spectrum Sharing Techniques for Ambient IoT Networks.
- Scalability and Network Management for Massive Ambient IoT Deployment.
- Latency, Data Rate, and Link Reliability Studies for Ambient IoT.
- Energy Harvesting and Energy Storage Solutions for Ambient IoT.
- Device Complexity and Power Consumption Solutions for Ambient IoT.
- Coverage, Device Density, and Interference Analysis.
- Device mobility and Positioning Solutions for Ambient IoT.
- Interoperability and Integration to Existing Wireless Systems and Standardization Efforts.
- Comparison with Existing Low-Power IoT Solutions (NB-IoT, LTE-M, LoRa, SigFox, RFID, etc.).
- Authentication, Provisioning, and User Privacy Tailored for Ambient IoT.
- Security Mechanisms for Ambient IoT.
- Deployment Scenarios, Use cases, and Services for Ambient IoT.
- Analysis, Simulation, and Testbeds for Ambient IoT.