Internet of Things (IoT) is regarded as next generation wave of Information Technology (IT) after widespread emergence of the Internet and mobile communication technologies. IoT supports information exchange and networked interaction of appliances, vehicles and other objects, making sensing and actuation possible in low-cost and smart manner.

On the other hand, cyber-physical systems (CPS) are described as the engineered systems which are built upon the tight integration of the cyber entities (e.g., computation, communication, and control) and the physical things (natural and man-made systems governed by the laws of physics).

The IoT and CPS are not isolated technologies. Rather it can be said that IoT is the base or enabling technology for CPS and CPS is considered as the grownup development of IoT, completing the IoT notion and vision. Both are merged into closed-loop, providing mechanisms for conceptualizing, and realizing all aspects of the networked composed systems that are monitored and controlled by computing algorithms and are tightly coupled among users and the Internet. That is, the hardware and the software entities are intertwined and they typically function on different time and location-based scales. In fact, the linking between the cyber and the physical world is enabled by IoT (through sensors and actuators). CPS that include traditional embedded and control systems, are supposed to be transformed by the evolving and innovative methodologies and engineering of IoT.

Several applications areas of IoT and CPS are smart building, smart transport, automated vehicles, smart cities, smart grid, smart manufacturing, smart agriculture, smart healthcare, smart supply chain and logistics, etc.

Though CPS and IoT have significant overlaps, they differ in terms of engineering aspects. Engineering IoT systems revolves around the uniquely identifiable and internet-connected devices and embedded systems; whereas engineering CPS requires a strong emphasis on the relationship between computation aspects (complex software) and the physical entities (hardware).

Engineering CPS is challenging because there is no defined and fixed boundary and relationship between cyber and physical worlds. In CPS, diverse constituent parts are composed and collaborated together to create unified systems with global behaviour. These systems need to be ensured in terms of the dependability, safety, security, efficiency, and adherence to the real‐time constraints. Hence, designing CPS requires knowledge of multidisciplinary areas such as sensing technologies, distributed systems, pervasive and ubiquitous computing, real-time computing, computer networking, control theory, signal processing, embedded systems, etc.

CPS, along with the continuous evolving IoT, has posed several challenges. For example, the enormous amount of data collected from the physical things makes it difficult for Big Data management and analytics that includes data normalization, data aggregation, data mining, pattern extraction and information visualization. Similarly, the future IoT and CPS need standardized abstraction and architecture that will allow modular designing and engineering of IoT and CPS in global and synergetic applications. Another challenging concern of IoT and CPS is the security and reliability of the components and systems.

Although IoT and CPS have attracted the attention of the research communities and several ideas and solutions are proposed, there are still huge scopes for innovative propositions to make IoT and CPS vision successful.

The special issue aims to explore recent advances and disseminate state-of-the-art research related to IoT and CPS on designing, building and deploying novel applications, services and technologies to enable smart services and applications. In addition to this, the issue will also deal with hardware/software technologies, novel frameworks cum architectures, efficient communication technologies to work as backbone for IoT and CPS.

Topics:

This Special Issue expects original and high quality submissions related (but not limited) to one or more of the following topics:

• Architecture and protocol design for IoT and CPS
• Performance evaluation, simulation and modelling of IoT and CPS
• Middleware designing for IoT and CPS applications
• Sensors, actuators, and hardware programming for IoT and CPS
• IoT and CPS for augmented, virtual, and mixed reality applications
• IoT and CPS collaborations for smart automation and Industry 4.0
• IoT and CPS collaborations for smart cities and smart & green buildings
• Crowdsourced IoT and CPS applications
• Role of smart mobile devices and mobile services in IoT and CPS applications
• Cloud computing and services for IoT and CPS
• Role of Edge/Fog computing in evolving IoT and CPS
• Energy management for IoT and CPS
• Real-time data analytics and data stream management for IoT and CPS
• Context and situational awareness in CPS
• Data virtualization and data-as-a-service in CPS
• Data-driven framework for CPS
• Addressing the security, privacy, and trust issues in IoT and CPS
• Cross‐domain trust management, frameworks, and secure collaboration mechanisms in smart systems
• Integrity, reliability, availability, robustness, and fault-tolerance in IoT
• Ethics, legal, and social considerations in IoT and CPS application implementations
• Standardization for IoT and CPS application designing
• Testbeds and case studies for IoT and CPS
• Medical and health solutions using IoT and CPS
• Emerging business avenues and models in the age of CPS

Important dates:

• Submission:   April 1, 2020  May 15, 2020 
• Author notification:   May 31, 2020 June 15, 2020 
• Revised papers: June 30, 2020 
• Final decision: July 31, 2020 
• Camera Ready papers due: August 31, 2020 
• Publication: September 15, 2020

Submission guidelines:

Original and unpublished works on any of the topics aforementioned or related are welcome. The SCPE journal has a rigorous peer-reviewing process and papers will be reviewed by at least two referees. All submitted papers must be formatted according to the journal's instructions, which can be found at: 

http://www.scpe.org/index.php/scpe/about/submissions#authorGuidelines

Special issue editors:

• Anand Nayyar, Graduate School, Duy Tan University, Da Nang, Vietnam
• Pijush Kanti Dutta Pramanik, National Institute of Technology Durgapur, India
• Rajni Mohana, Jaypee Institute of Information Technology, Wakanghat, India