Call for Papers

Time is a precious and critical resource to computers, sensors, actuators, and most Internet of Things (IoT) devices and applications. An accurate definition of time across devices is the foundation for most IoT applications involving data fusion, learning and automation. Precise time and timeliness in task execution are fundamental requirements for emerging IoT applications and new experiences. Industry 4.0, mobile and collaborative robots, autonomous systems, immersive and interactive human-cyber experiences are only a few examples of the Internet of Time-Critical Things where precise time, computing, and communication with bounded latencies are strictly required. Furthermore, these applications might not only be time-critical but also safety-critical as they often involve interactions between humans and machines. Such stringent time and safety requirements bring new practical challenges, as well as new opportunities to revolutionize the traditional design, deployment and management of computing and communication infrastructure. New concepts in software-defined systems and networks, cloud/edge computing, Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN), Wi-Fi 6/7, 5G, 6G, dynamic and AI-driven resource orchestration are emerging as potential building blocks to enable the transformation of computing and communications infrastructure to enable emerging time-critical applications.

This Special Issue (SI) will provide a deep dive into the time-critical IoT systems and applications, their time and safety-critical requirements, the challenges in designing, deploying, and managing such applications. The SI will also address the practical aspects in computing and communications building blocks and required end-to-end system optimizations, learning and automation for the Time-Critical IoT. Topics of interest for this SI include, but are not limited to:

• Time-critical IoT applications (e.g., industrial control, digital twins, robotics, autonomous systems, and immersive/interactive environments)
• Safety-critical applications, requirements, and fail-safe protocols
• Time coordinated computing and communications
• Time-sensitive networking (TSN), Wireless TSN, ultra-low latency high-reliability communications, Wi-Fi 6/6E, Wi-Fi 7, Beyond 5G, 6G for time-critical systems
• Real-time orchestration of computing and networking resources
• Artificial Intelligence applied to time-critical computing and communication optimizations
• Hardware in the loop simulations and digital twins for real-time optimizations
• Performance evaluation, measurement methodologies, and testbeds of time-critical systems
• Industry experiences and cases studies in Time-critical IoT

Tentative Schedule

Manuscript Submission Deadline: 30 March 2022 30 April 2022 15 May 2022 30 May 2022 15 June 2022 (Extended Deadline)
Authors’ Revision Notification Date: 30 May 2022
Revised Manuscript Submission Deadline: 30 June 2022
Final Decision Notification Date: 31 July 2022
Publication Date: September 2022

Guest Editors

Dave Cavalcanti (Lead)
Intel

Kaushik Chowdhury
Northeastern University

Vivek Jain
Bosch Research

Stefano Vitturi
National Research Council of Italy, CNR-IEIIT

Malcolm Smith
Cisco

Carlos Kamienski
UFABC

Andreas Willig
University of Canterbury