About IEEE Pervasive Computing

IEEE Pervasive Computing explores the role of computing in the physical world–as characterized by visions such as the Internet of Things and ubiquitous computing. Designed for researchers, practitioners, and educators, this quarterly magazine acts as a catalyst for realizing the ideas described by Mark Weiser in 1988. The essence of this vision is the creation of environments saturated with sensing, computing, and wireless communication that gracefully support the needs of individuals and society. Many key building blocks for this vision are now viable commercial technologies: wearable and handheld computers, wireless networking, location sensing, Internet of Things platforms, and so on.

However, the vision continues to present deep challenges for experts in areas such as hardware design, sensor networks, mobile systems, human-computer interaction, industrial design, machine learning, data science, and societal issues including privacy and ethics. Through special issues, the magazine explores applications in areas such as assisted living, automotive systems, cognitive assistance, hardware innovations, ICT4D, manufacturing, retail, smart cities, and sustainability. In addition, the magazine accepts peer-reviewed papers of wide interest under a general call, and also features regular columns on hot topics and interviews with luminaries in the field.

Special Issue on Mission Critical Systems
Submission Date: 2026-01-25

Mission-critical systems—those whose failure could result in loss of life, significant property damage, or catastrophic disruption—are foundational to modern society. These include domains such as healthcare, emergency response, industrial automation, aerospace, defense, and critical infrastructure. The reliability, responsiveness, and resilience of such systems are paramount, and their evolution increasingly depends on intelligent sensing, real-time decision-making, and context-aware operation. Pervasive computing, with its emphasis on embedded intelligence, contextual responsiveness, and seamless integration with physical environments, offers compelling opportunities to strengthen the capabilities and robustness of mission-critical systems. Through distributed sensing, edge computing, secure communication, and adaptive interfaces, pervasive systems can support continuous monitoring, predictive maintenance, situational awareness, and rapid human-machine collaboration under high-stakes conditions. At the same time, introducing pervasive computing into mission-critical environments raises new challenges in system dependability, real-time performance, safety certification, and trust. The integration of these technologies must contend with constraints such as latency, security, fault tolerance, and operational autonomy—often under extreme environmental or regulatory conditions.

This special issue invites contributions that examine the intersection of pervasive computing and mission-critical systems—including both technical innovations and critical evaluations. We seek work that explores how pervasive approaches can enhance the performance, resilience, and safety of mission-critical operations, while also confronting the unique constraints they impose.

We invite original and high-quality submissions addressing, but not limited to, the following topics:

    Sensing and Context-Awareness for Safety-Critical Scenarios: Real-time monitoring and inference in high-risk domains such as emergency medicine, battlefield environments, aviation, or nuclear facilities.
    Edge Intelligence and Real-Time Decision Making: Deployment of on-device or local AI in latency-sensitive and bandwidth-constrained mission-critical contexts.
    Redundancy, Fault Tolerance, and Fail-Safe Design: Pervasive system architectures that ensure continuous operation and graceful degradation under hardware/software failure.
    Pervasive Interfaces for High-Stakes Human-Machine Interaction: Design of multimodal, context-aware interfaces to support situational awareness and decision-making in operational control rooms or field environments.
    Security, Privacy, and Resilience in Adversarial Settings: Strategies for ensuring integrity, confidentiality, and availability of pervasive systems in critical infrastructure, defense, and emergency response.
    Sensor Fusion and Distributed Coordination: Use of pervasive systems to support collaborative perception and coordination in multi-agent, multi-device mission-critical settings.
    Verification, Validation, and Certification: Techniques and frameworks to ensure regulatory compliance and verifiable safety of pervasive components in mission-critical systems.
    Case Studies and Operational Deployments: Reports on real-world integration and evaluation of pervasive computing systems in domains such as healthcare delivery, disaster response, industrial control, autonomous vehicles, or air traffic management.

We also welcome papers addressing any aspect of this field, provided that the connection to pervasive computing is central and clear. Review or summary articles offering critical evaluations of the state of the art or in-depth analyses of emerging technologies will also be considered if they demonstrate academic rigor and relevance.

Articles submitted to IEEE Pervasive Computing should not exceed 6,000 words, including all text, the abstract, keywords, bibliography, biographies, and table text. The word count must include 250 words for each table and figure. References should be limited to at most 20 citations (40 for survey papers). Authors are encouraged, but not required, to use a template for submission (accepted articles will ultimately be typeset by magazine staff for publication).