Advanced Service Technology and Application in Smart Sensor Networks

1. Introduction

Smart sensor nodes are tiny autonomous devices that combine sensing, computing, and wireless communication capabilities. Current developments show that in the near future the wide availability of low-cost, short-range radio technology, along with advances in wireless networking, will enable wireless ad hoc sensor networks to become commonly deployed. A smart sensor network consists of spatially distributed autonomous sensors to monitor physical or environmental conditions, such as temperature, sound, vibration, pressure, humidity, motion, or pollutants, and to cooperatively pass their data through the network to a main location. The more modern networks are bidirectional, also enabling control of sensor activity [1, 2].

This technology facilitates constant business transformation in new business service paradigms. The implementation of smart sensor network has facilitated innovative applications in various fields such as homeland security, early warning systems, supply chain, global logistics, emergency response, healthcare, and other time and life critical situations. And many leading organizations are increasing their investments in innovative smart business technology, applications, and service. These services demand new business models to create profits with efficient strategies [3–5].

The main motivation for this special issue was to bring together researchers and practitioners working on related fields in advanced service technology and application in smart sensor networks and its services to present current research issues and advances. Papers on practical as well as on theoretical topics and problems have been accepted.

2. Advanced Service Technology and Application

This special issue consists of the original research articles, which make the special issue cover all aspects of advanced service technology and application and provide insight and future research directions to readers. More specifically, the paper entitled “Dynamic Deployment for Hybrid Sensor Networks Based on Potential Field-Directed Particle Swarm Optimization” by Y. Zhang et al. proposed a deployment algorithm PFPSO (Potential Field-Directed Particle Swarm Optimization) to guide the mobile nodes to the optimal positions. The paper entitled “A Distributed Collaborative Platform for Personal Health Profiles in Patient-Driven Health Social Network” by A. M. Elmisery et al. proposed a core platform named Distributed Platform for Health Profiles (DPHP) that enables individuals or groups to control their personal health profiles and maximize the effort where users benefit from each usage for their personal health profiles. The paper entitled “Secure Key Distribution Using Fragmentation and Assimilation in Wireless Sensor and Actor Networks” by A. Ghafoor et al. proposed a key distribution scheme, named Key Distribution Using Fragmentation and Assimilation (KDFA). In this scheme, the sender node splits the actual key into fragments and sends them through intermediate actor nodes towards the receiver node. The paper entitled “Related-Key Differential Attacks on COSB-128” by S. D. P. Tran and C. Lee constructed the related-key differential characteristics of a full-round of COSB-128 cipher with high probabilities based on some properties combined with the simple key schedule within COSB-128 structure. The paper entitled “Image Denoising Based on Improved Wavelet Threshold Function for Wireless Camera Networks and Transmissions” by X. Wang et al. proposed a new wavelet threshold denoising function and an improved threshold. The paper entitled “A Real-Time Video Watermarking Algorithm for Authentication of Small-Business Wireless Surveillance Networks” by S. Liu et al. proposed a real-time video watermarking scheme for MPEG, which firstly exploits fast scenes segmentation to original video sequence and adaptively selects appropriate scenes to be embedded. The paper entitled “E-MCDA: Extended-Multilayer Cluster Designing Algorithm for Network Lifetime Improvement of Homogenous Wireless Sensor Networks” by S. Jabbar et al. proposed the constructive ramification of cluster designing mechanism floated in recently published work, multilayer cluster designing algorithm (MCDA) to ameliorate the performance in network life time.

3. Conclusion

Totally, we have received a lot of submissions coming from different countries all around the globe in response to call for papers. Each accepted article has been reviewed by at least three reviewers. In the end, several articles have been revised and selected for publishing in this special issue.

We firmly believe that the accepted papers would be a meaningful contribution to researchers, students, and practitioners studying this field of advanced service technology and application in smart sensor networks.