Collaborative Sensing

Dear Colleagues,

Increasingly relevant and diversified applications of Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies require large-scale data acquisition and mining, such as environmental monitoring, ambient intelligence, disaster recovery, smart grid, supply chain management and smart manufacturing to name a few. They must cope with several hard issues, including: large-scale sensor network management; Big Data management and exploitation; volatility of resources, users and devices; heterogeneity of hardware/software platforms; dependence on context and personalization; strict computational resource constraints.

The above issues are exacerbated in ubiquitous and pervasive contexts, with mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs) of resource-constrained things. In such scenarios, centralized approaches and infrastructures become unmanageable, while distributed collaborative paradigms can be more effective.

Recent trends propose sensing as a service models, where mobile agents offer, request, discover and exploit data sensing and analysis services, enabled by on-board sensors or devices in their immediate proximity, connected through low-power wireless links. These models are typically:

• peer-to-peer: any node can request data or search for specific kinds of sensors;
• opportunistic: designed to exploit dynamically all the available resources in a given area in a certain time frame;
• participatory: users are invited to contribute their data, sensing and computing resources to the network.

Collaborative sensing approaches should be general enough to support various types of applications, platforms and devices. Furthermore, effective incentive mechanisms ought to be devised to promote sustained collaboration. Finally, interoperability must involve both application-layer protocols and data exchange formats. For these reasons, integrating World Wide Web – and particularly Semantic Web – technologies is a relevant research trend for promoting interoperable collaboration in large-scale data sensing and processing scenarios, such as multi-party WSN and IoT deployments and federations.

This Special Issue of Sensors will be dedicated to frameworks, architectures, technologies and systems for collaborative sensing, with particular emphasis on ubiquitous and pervasive computing contexts. Full papers, communications and reviews are welcome. Topics include, but are not limited to:

• collaborative and participatory sensing in WSN and IoT scenarios;
• collaborative, decentralized and peer-to-peer protocols for device and sensor discovery;
• collaborative, decentralized and peer-to-peer protocols and frameworks for data discovery, data mining and machine learning;
• sensing-as-a-service frameworks, architectures and protocols;
• opportunistic sensing and computing in ubiquitous contexts;
• design and evaluation of incentive mechanisms for participatory sensing;
• energy-conscious and resource-conscious collaborative sensing;
• user-centered personalized participatory sensing tools, interfaces and applications;
• World Wide Web and Semantic Web technologies for collaborative sensing and ubiquitous sensor networks;
• distributed ledger and blockchain technologies for collaborative sensing.

The purpose of the Special Issue is to collect original research papers or review articles. Although the emphasis is on practical solutions, we also welcome theoretical frameworks and studies.

Dr. Floriano Scioscia
Prof. Michele Ruta
Prof. Eugenio Di Sciascio
Guest Editors

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