COVID-19, caused by SARS-CoV-2, has resulted in a global pandemic recently. With no approved vaccination or treatment, governments around the world have issued guidance to their citizens to remain at home in efforts to control the spread of the disease. The goal of controlling the spread of the virus is to prevent strain on hospitals. In this paper, we focus on how non-invasive methods are being used to detect COVID-19 and assist healthcare workers in caring for COVID-19 patients. Early detection of COVID-19 can allow for early isolation to prevent further spread. This study outlines the advantages and disadvantages and a breakdown of the methods applied in the current state-of-the-art approaches. In addition, the paper highlights some future research directions, which need to be explored further to produce innovative technologies to control this pandemic.

Energy consumption is a critical issue in the design of wireless underwater sensor networks (WUSNs). Data transfer in the harsh underwater channel requires higher transmission powers compared to an equivalent terrestrial-based network to achieve the same range. However, battery-operated underwater sensor nodes are energy-constrained and require that they transmit with low power to conserve power. Clustering is a technique for partitioning wireless networks into groups where a local base station (cluster head) is only one hop away. Due to the proximity to the cluster head, sensor nodes can lower their transmitting power, thereby improving the network energy efficiency. This paper describes the implementation of a new clustering algorithm to prolong the lifetime of WUSNs. We propose a new protocol called distance-and energy-constrained k-means clustering scheme (DEKCS) for cluster head selection. A potential cluster head is selected based on its position in the cluster and based on its residual battery level. We dynamically update the residual energy thresholds set for potential cluster heads to ensure that the network fully runs out of energy before it becomes disconnected. Also, we leverage the elbow method to dynamically select the optimal number of clusters according to the network size, thereby making the network scalable. Our evaluations show that the proposed scheme outperforms the conventional low-energy adaptive clustering hierarchy (LEACH) protocol by over 90% and an optimised version of LEACH based on k-means clustering by 42%.

Tr a n s a c t i o n s o n E m e r g i n g Te l e c o m m u n i c a t i o n s Te c h n o l o g i e s

The race for the 6th generation of wireless networks (6G) has begun. Researchers around the world have started to explore the best solutions for the challenges that the previous generations have experienced. To provide the readers with a clear map of the current developments, several review papers shared their vision and critically evaluated the state of the art. However, most of the work is based on general observations and the big picture vision, and lack the practical implementation challenges of the Internet of Things (IoT) use cases. This paper takes a novel approach in the review, as we present a sample of IoT use cases that are representative of a wide variety of its implementations. The chosen use cases are from the most research-active sectors that can benefit from 6G and its enabling technologies. These sectors are healthcare, smart grid, transport, and Industry 4.0. Additionally, we identified some of the practical challenges and the lessons learned in the implementation of these use cases. The review highlights the cases’ main requirements and how they overlap with the key drivers for the future generation of wireless networks.

The Internet of Things (IoT) and its applications in industrial settings are set to bring in the fourth industrial revolution. The industrial environment consisting of high profile manufacturing plants and a variety of equipment is inherently characterized by high reflectiveness, causing significant multi-path components that affect the propagation of wireless communications—a challenge among others that needs to be resolved. This paper provides a detailed insight into Narrow-Band IoT (NB-IoT), Industrial IoT (IIoT), and Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) within the context of indoor industrial environments. It presents the applications of NB-IoT for industrial settings, such as the challenges associated with these applications. Furthermore, future research directions were put forth in the areas of NB-IoT network management using self-organizing network (SON) technology, edge computing for scalability enhancement, security in NB-IoT generated data, and proposing a suitable propagation model for reliable wireless communications.

With the popularity of smart wearable systems, sensor signal processing poses more challenges to machine learning in embedded scenarios. For example, traditional machine-learning methods for data classification, especially in real time, are computationally intensive. The deployment of Artificial Intelligence algorithms on embedded hardware for fast data classification and accurate fall detection poses a huge challenge in achieving power-efficient embedded systems. Therefore, by exploiting the associative memory feature of Hopfield Neural Network, a hardware module has been designed to simulate the Neural Network algorithm which uses sensor data integration and data classification for recognizing the fall. By adopting the Hebbian learning method for training neural networks, weights of human activity features are obtained and implemented/embedded into the hardware design. Here, the neural network weight of fall activity is achieved through data preprocessing, and then the weight is mapped to the amplification factor setting in the hardware. The designs are checked with validation scenarios, and the experiment is completed with a Hopfield neural network in the analog module. Through simulations, the classification accuracy of the fall data reached 88.9% which compares well with some other results achieved by the software-based machine-learning algorithms, which verify the feasibility of our hardware design. The designed system performs the complex signal calculations of the hardware’s feedback signal, replacing the software-based method. A straightforward circuit design is used to meet the weight setting from the Hopfield neural network, which is maximizing the reusability and flexibility of the circuit design.

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A paramount challenge of prohibiting increased CO2 emissions for network densification is to deliver the Fifth Generation (5G) cellular capacity and connectivity demands, while maintaining a greener, healthier and prosperous environment. Energy consumption is a demanding consideration in the 5G era to combat several challenges such as reactive mode of operation, high latency wake up times, incorrect user association with the cells, multiple cross-functional operation of Self-Organising Networks (SON), etc. To address this challenge, we propose a novel Mobility Management-Based Autonomous Energy-Aware Framework for analysing bus passengers ridership through statistical Machine Learning (ML) and proactive energy savings coupled with CO2 emissions in Heterogeneous Network (HetNet) architecture using Reinforcement Learning (RL). Furthermore, we compare and report various ML algorithms using bus passengers ridership obtained from London Overground (LO) dataset. Extensive spatiotemporal simulations show that our proposed framework can achieve up to 98.82% prediction accuracy and CO2 reduction gains of up to 31.83%.