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The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is recognized as one of the revolutionary technologies driving smart manufacturing and improving productivity. As manufacturing processes grow increasingly intricate, the entire manufacturing ecosystem encompasses multiple managed IoT domains. Within this highly interconnected environment, devices from diverse domains must collaborate, leading to considerable apprehensions about the security and privacy of device-to-device communications. Current authentication methods encounter several challenges. Traditional authentication schemes overly rely on trusted third parties, rendering them susceptible to external attacks or internal spoofing. This susceptibility gives rise to a range of security and privacy concerns. In response to these challenges, this paper aims to contribute to a more secure and efficient service scheme for smart factories by devising a blockchain-based distributed IoT architecture. The proposed scheme introduces a federated blockchain to establish trust among different domains, thereby enabling secure connections between devices in distinct domains. Through security analysis, it is proved that the proposed authentication scheme has integrity, mutual authentication, scalability, and resistance to four attacks. Furthermore, efficiency analysis experiments show that our scheme is feasible for smart factories, and as the number of peer nodes increases, the performance and efficiency of the blockchain network become better., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

The industrial revolution based on the Internet of Things brings new opportunities and challenges for enterprises' green and sustainable development. Therefore, this study explores the relationship between the Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT) and the Green Transformation of Enterprises (GT) based on the data of China's A-share listed companies from 2009 to 2023 using two-way fixed, mediated effect, and moderated effect models. The results show that for every unit increase in IIOT, the GT increases by 28.89 percent on average, indicating that IIOT can break down information barriers and effectively promote GT. However, after disaggregating the GT, it was found that the IIOT guided companies to implement the Symbolic Green Transformation (SGT) instead of adopting the Realistic Green Transformation (RGT). This strategic choice preference is more pronounced among firms that are larger, in energy-intensive industries, in regions with weaker environmental regulations and higher levels of development. The intermediary mechanism test proved that the IIOT can drive firms to implement comprehensive GT through paths that enhance investment attractiveness, productivity, technological innovation, and pay gaps. In particular, the masking effect reminds us that smart technology is a "double-edged sword". The negative effects of smart technologies hinder the implementation of RGT. Further analysis reveals an inverted U-shaped relationship between IIOT and RGT preferences. In addition, in companies that focus on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) performance and avoid financial speculation, the dark side of intelligent technology is suppressed. The findings of this study enrich the research scope of smart technology, GT, and provide important insights for enterprises in emerging economies to rationally utilize IIOT to seek green and sustainable development under the wave of rapid development of smart technology., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2024 The Authors.)

Norms have been effectively utilized to facilitate smooth interactions among agents. Norms are usually the global data that agents cannot directly access in complex environments; instead, norms can only be indirectly accessed by agents via maintaining their own beliefs about norms. Establishing norms using decentralized interaction-based methods has attracted much attention. However, the current methods overlook Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) environments. In IIoT, there is a prevalent feature called "conflict-blocking", where agents' conflicting action strategies can block an interaction from being completed or even cause danger. To facilitate norm emergence in IIoT, we propose a framework to support agent decisions in conflict-blocking interactions. The framework aids in achieving system scalability by integrating the fusion of agent beliefs about norms. We prove that the proposed framework guarantees norm emergence. We also theoretically and experimentally analyze the time required for norm emergence under the influence of various factors, such as the number of agents. A vehicle movement simulator is also developed to vividly illustrate the process of norm emergence.

The calibration industry is renowned for its diverse and sophisticated equipment and complex processes, which necessitate innovative solutions to keep pace with rapidly advancing technology. This paper introduces an enhancement to an existing microservice-based cloud architecture, aimed at effectively managing the inherent complexity within this field. The enhanced architecture seamlessly integrates various equipment types and communication technologies, aligning diverse stakeholder expectations into a unified system that ensures efficient and accurate calibration processes. It highlights the integration of microservices to facilitate various methods of uncertainty calculation and the generation of digital calibration certificates (DCCs). A case study on RF power measurement illustrates the practical application and benefits of the enhanced architecture. Although initially focused on RF power measurement, the flexible architecture allows for future expansions to accommodate new standards and measurement techniques. The enhanced system offers a comprehensive approach to managing data flow from calibration equipment to the final generation of DCCs, utilizing cloud-based services for efficient data processing. As a future direction, this extension sets the groundwork for broader applicability across multiple measurement types, ensuring readiness for upcoming advancements in metrology.

Mobile robots play an important role in the industrial Internet of Things (IIoT); they need effective mutual communication between the cloud and themselves when they move in a factory. By using the sensor nodes existing in the IIoT environment as relays, mobile robots and the cloud can communicate through multiple hops. However, the mobility and delay sensitivity of mobile robots bring new challenges. In this paper, we propose a dynamic cooperative transmission algorithm with mutual information accumulation to cope with these two challenges. By using rateless coding, nodes can reduce the delay caused by retransmission under poor channel conditions. With the help of mutual information accumulation, nodes can accumulate information faster and reduce delay. We propose a two-step dynamic algorithm, which can obtain the current routing path with low time complexity. The simulation results show that our algorithm is better than the existing heuristic algorithm in terms of delay.

With the maturity of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, applications of AI in edge computing will greatly promote the development of industrial technology. However, the existing studies on the edge computing framework for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) still face several challenges, such as deep hardware and software coupling, diverse protocols, difficult deployment of AI models, insufficient computing capabilities of edge devices, and sensitivity to delay and energy consumption. To solve the above problems, this paper proposes a software-defined AI-oriented three-layer IIoT edge computing framework and presents the design and implementation of an AI-oriented edge computing system, aiming to support device access, enable the acceptance and deployment of AI models from the cloud, and allow the whole process from data acquisition to model training to be completed at the edge. In addition, this paper proposes a time series-based method for device selection and computation offloading in the federated learning process, which selectively offloads the tasks of inefficient nodes to the edge computing center to reduce the training delay and energy consumption. Finally, experiments carried out to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method are reported. The model training time with the proposed method is generally 30% to 50% less than that with the random device selection method, and the training energy consumption under the proposed method is generally 35% to 55% less.

In the development of the Power Industry Internet of Things, the security of data interaction has always been an important challenge. In the power-based blockchain Industrial Internet of Things, node data interaction involves a large amount of sensitive data. In the current anti-leakage strategy for power business data interaction, regular expressions are used to identify sensitive data for matching. This approach is only suitable for simple structured data. For the processing of unstructured data, there is a lack of practical matching strategies. Therefore, this paper proposes a deep learning-based anti-leakage method for power business data interaction, aiming to ensure the security of power business data interaction between the State Grid business platform and third-party platforms. This method combines named entity recognition technologies and comprehensively uses regular expressions and the DeBERTa (Decoding-enhanced BERT with disentangled attention)-BiLSTM (Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory)-CRF (Conditional Random Field) model. This method is based on the DeBERTa (Decoding-enhanced BERT with disentangled attention) model for pre-training feature extraction. It extracts sequence context semantic features through the BiLSTM, and finally obtains the global optimal through the CRF layer tag sequence. Sensitive data matching is performed on interactive structured and unstructured data to identify privacy-sensitive information in the power business. The experimental results show that the F1 score of the proposed method in this paper for identifying sensitive data entities using the CLUENER 2020 dataset reaches 81.26%, which can effectively prevent the risk of power business data leakage and provide innovative solutions for the power industry to ensure data security.

The security of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is of vital importance, and the Network Intrusion Detection System (NIDS) plays an indispensable role in this. Although there is an increasing number of studies on the use of deep learning technology to achieve network intrusion detection, the limited local data of the device may lead to poor model performance because deep learning requires large-scale datasets for training. Some solutions propose to centralize the local datasets of devices for deep learning training, but this may involve user privacy issues. To address these challenges, this study proposes a novel federated learning (FL)-based approach aimed at improving the accuracy of network intrusion detection while ensuring data privacy protection. This research combines convolutional neural networks with attention mechanisms to develop a new deep learning intrusion detection model specifically designed for the IIoT. Additionally, variational autoencoders are incorporated to enhance data privacy protection. Furthermore, an FL framework enables multiple IIoT clients to jointly train a shared intrusion detection model without sharing their raw data. This strategy significantly improves the model's detection capability while effectively addressing data privacy and security issues. To validate the effectiveness of the proposed method, a series of experiments were conducted on a real-world Internet of Things (IoT) network intrusion dataset. The experimental results demonstrate that our model and FL approach significantly improve key performance metrics such as detection accuracy, precision, and false-positive rate (FPR) compared to traditional local training methods and existing models.

Introduction: Increased deployment of heterogeneous and complex Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) applications such as predictive maintenance and asset tracking places a substantial strain on the limited computational and communication resources. To cater to the rigorous demands of these applications, it is imperative to devise an adaptive online resource allocation method to enhance the efficiency of the current network operations. Multiaccess edge computing (MEC) and digital twins (DTs) are promising solutions that facilitate the realization of edge intelligence and find applications in various industrial applications. Yet, little is known about the advantage the two technologies offer to IIoT networks., Objective: This study presents a joint optimization of offloading and resource allocation approach where MEC-server DT is created at the edge, and nonorthogonal multiple access (NOMA) communication is considered between IIoT devices and the industrial gateways (IGWs) for spectral efficiency. Our proposed framework is tailored to reduce mean task completion latency and enhance overall IIoT network throughput., Method: To achieve our objective, we jointly optimize the computation resource allocation (RA), subchannel assignment (SA), and offloading decisions (OD). Given the inherent complexity of the problem, we further divide it into RA and SA/OD sub-problems. Employing Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL), we have formulated a solution delineating the most efficient RA strategy and leveraged DT for optimal SA/OD strategies., Results: Simulation results demonstrate the superior efficiency of our framework, realizing up to 92 % of the efficiency of the exhaustive search method while reducing computation and action decision time., Conclusion: In light of system dynamics considered for our work, the proposed framework perfomance showcase its robustness and potential application in real-world IIoT networks., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V.)

The aim of this paper is to discuss the usability of vibrations as energy sources, for the implementation of energy self-sufficient wireless sensing platforms within the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) framework. In this context, this paper proposes to equip vibrating assets like machinery with piezoelectric sensors, used to set up energy self-sufficient sensing platforms for hard-to-reach positions. Preliminary measurements as well as extended laboratory tests are proposed to understand the behavior of commercial piezoelectric sensors when employed as energy harvesters. First, a general architecture for a vibration-powered LoRaWAN-based sensor node is proposed. Final tests are then performed to identify an ideal trade-off between sensor sampling rates and energy availability. The target is to ensure continuous operation of the device while guaranteeing a charging trend of the storage component connected to the system. In this context, an Ultra-Low-Power Energy-Harvesting Integrated Circuit plays a crucial role by ensuring the correct regulation of the output with very high efficiency.

Classifying the flow subsequences of sensor networks is an effective way for fault detection in the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Traditional fault detection algorithms identify exceptions by a single abnormal dataset and do not pay attention to the factors such as electromagnetic interference, network delay, sensor sample delay, and so on. This paper focuses on fault detection by continuous abnormal points. We proposed a fault detection algorithm within the module of sequence state generated by unsupervised learning (SSGBUL) and the module of integrated encoding sequence classification (IESC). Firstly, we built a network module based on unsupervised learning to encode the flow sequence of the different network cards in the IIoT gateway, and then combined the multiple code sequences into one integrated sequence. Next, we classified the integrated sequence by comparing the integrated sequence with the encoding fault type. The results obtained from the three IIoT datasets of a sewage treatment plant show that the accuracy of the SSGBUL-IESC algorithm exceeds 90% with subsequence length 10, which is significantly higher than the accuracies of the dynamic time warping (DTW) algorithm and the time series forest (TSF) algorithm. The proposed algorithm reaches the classification requirements for fault detection for the IIoT.

Introduction: In recent years, the proliferation of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) devices has resulted in a substantial increase in data generation across various domains, including the nascent 6G networks. Digital Twins (DTs), serving as virtual replicas of physical entities, have gained popularity within the realm of IoT due to their capacity to simulate and optimize physical systems in a cost-effective manner. Nonetheless, the security of DTs and the safeguarding of the sensitive data they generate have emerged as paramount concerns. Fortunately, the Federated Fearning (FL) system has emerged as a promising solution to address the challenge of data privacy within DTs. Nonetheless, the requisite acquisition of a significant volume of labeled data for training purposes poses a formidable challenge, particularly in a DT environment that blends real and virtual data., Objectives: To tackle this challenge, this study presents an innovative Semi-supervised FL (SSFL) framework designed to overcome the scarcity of labeled data through the strategic utilization of pseudo-labels., Methods: Specifically, our proposed SSFL algorithm, named SSFL-MBE, introduces a novel approach by combining Mix data augmentation and Bayesian Estimation consistency regularization loss, thereby integrating robust augmentation techniques to enhance model generalization. Furthermore, we introduce a Bayesian-estimated pseudo-label loss that leverages prior probabilistic knowledge to enhance model performance. Our investigation focuses particularly on a demanding scenario where labeled and unlabeled data are segregated across disparate locations, specifically, the server and various clients., Results: Comprehensive evaluations conducted on CIFAR-10 and MNIST datasets conclusively demonstrate that our proposed algorithm consistently surpasses mainstream SSFL baseline models, exhibiting an enhancement in model performance ranging from 0.5% to 1.5%., Conclusion: Overall, this work contributes to the development of more efficient and secure approaches for model training in DT-empowered FL settings, which is crucial for the deployment of IIoTs in 6G-enabled environments., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V.)

Nowadays, the Industry 4.0 concept and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) are considered essential for the implementation of automated manufacturing processes across various industrial settings. In this regard, wireless sensor networks (WSN) are crucial due to their inherent mobility, easy deployment and maintenance, scalability, and low power consumption, among other benefits. In this context, the presented paper proposes an optimized and low-cost WSN based on ZigBee communication technology for the monitoring of a real manufacturing facility. The company designs and manufactures solar protection curtains and aims to integrate the deployed WSN into the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system in order to optimize their production processes and enhance production efficiency and cost estimation capabilities. To achieve this, radio propagation measurements and 3D ray launching simulations were conducted to characterize the wireless channel behavior and facilitate the development of an optimized WSN system that can operate in the complex industrial environment presented and validated through on-site wireless channel measurements, as well as interference analysis. Then, a low-cost WSN was implemented and deployed to acquire real-time data from different machinery and workstations, which will be integrated into the ERP system. Multiple data streams have been collected and processed from the shop floor of the factory by means of the prototype wireless nodes implemented. This integration will enable the company to optimize its production processes, fabricate products more efficiently, and enhance its cost estimation capabilities. Moreover, the proposed system provides a scalable platform, enabling the integration of new sensors as well as information processing capabilities.

The development of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) in recent years has resulted in an increase in the amount of data generated by connected devices, creating new opportunities to enhance the quality of service for machine learning in the IIoT through data sharing. Graph neural networks (GNNs) are the most popular technique in machine learning at the moment because they can learn extremely precise node representations from graph-structured data. Due to privacy issues and legal restrictions of clients in industrial IoT, it is not permissible to directly concentrate vast real-world graph-structured datasets for training on GNNs. To resolve the aforementioned difficulties, this paper proposes a federal graph learning framework based on Bayesian inference (BI-FedGNN) that performs effectively in the presence of noisy graph structure information or missing strong relational edges. BI-FedGNN extends Bayesian Inference (BI) to the process of Federal Graph Learning (FGL), adding random samples with weights and biases to the client-side local model training process, improving the accuracy and generalization ability of FGL in the training process by rendering the graph structure data involved in GNNs training more similar to the graph structure data existing in the real world. Through extensive experimental tests, the results show that BI-FedGNN has about 0.5%-5.0% accuracy improvement over other baselines of federal graph learning. In order to expand the applicability of BI-FedGNN, experiments are carried out on heterogeneous graph datasets, and the results indicate that BI-FedGNN can also have at least 1.4% improvement in classification accuracy., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The use of the Internet of Things (IoT) technologies and principles in industrial environments is known as the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). The IIoT concept aims to integrate various industrial devices, sensors, and actuators for collection, storage, monitoring, and process automation. Due to the complexity of IIoT environments, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. The main challenges in developing an IIoT solution are represented by the diversity of sensors and devices, connectivity, edge/fog computing, and security. This paper proposes a distributed and customized IioT (Industrial Internet of Things) framework for the interaction of things from the industrial environment. This framework is distributed on the fog nodes of the IIoT architecture proposed, and it will have the possibility to interconnect local things (with low latency) or global things (with a latency generated by the Internet network). To demonstrate the functionality of the proposed framework, it is included in the fog nodes presented in other paper. These fog nodes allow the integration of CANOpen networks into an IioT architecture. The most important advantages of the proposed architecture are its customizability and the fact that it allows decision operations to be carried out at the edge of the network to eliminate latency due to the Internet.

The technical capabilities of modern Industry 4.0 and Industry 5.0 are vast and growing exponentially daily. The present-day Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) combines manifold underlying technologies that require real-time interconnection and communication among heterogeneous devices. Smart cities are established with sophisticated designs and control of seamless machine-to-machine (M2M) communication, to optimize resources, costs, performance, and energy distributions. All the sensory devices within a building interact to maintain a sustainable climate for residents and intuitively optimize the energy distribution to optimize energy production. However, this encompasses quite a few challenges for devices that lack a compatible and interoperable design. The conventional solutions are restricted to limited domains or rely on engineers designing and deploying translators for each pair of ontologies. This is a costly process in terms of engineering effort and computational resources. An issue persists that a new device with a different ontology must be integrated into an existing IoT network. We propose a self-learning model that can determine the taxonomy of devices given their ontological meta-data and structural information. The model finds matches between two distinct ontologies using a natural language processing (NLP) approach to learn linguistic contexts. Then, by visualizing the ontological network as a knowledge graph, it is possible to learn the structure of the meta-data and understand the device's message formulation. Finally, the model can align entities of ontological graphs that are similar in context and structure.Furthermore, the model performs dynamic M2M translation without requiring extra engineering or hardware resources.

Industry 4.0 has significantly improved the industrial manufacturing scenario in recent years. The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) enables the creation of globally interconnected smart factories, where constituent elements seamlessly exchange information. Industry 5.0 has further complemented these achievements, as it focuses on a human-centric approach where humans become part of this network of things, leading to a robust human-machine interaction. In this distributed, dynamic, and highly interconnected environment, functional safety is essential for adequately protecting people and machinery. The increasing availability of wireless networks makes it possible to implement distributed and flexible functional safety systems. However, such networks are known for introducing unwanted delays that can lead to safety performance degradation due to their inherent uncertainty. In this context, the Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) standards present an attractive prospect for enhancing and ensuring acceptable behaviors. The research presented in this paper deals with the introduction of TSN to implement functional safety protocols for wireless networks. Among the available solutions, we selected Wi-Fi since it is a widespread network, often considered and deployed for industrial applications. The introduction of a reference functional safety protocol is detailed, along with an analysis of how TSN can enhance its behavior by evaluating relevant performance indexes. The evaluation pertains to a standard case study of an industrial warehouse, tested through practical simulations. The results demonstrate that TSN provides notable advantages, but it requires meticulous coordination with the Wi-Fi MAC layer protocol to guarantee improved performance.

Developing self-powered smart wireless sensor networks by harvesting industrial environmental weak vibration energy remains a challenge and an impending need for enabling the widespread rollout of the industrial internet of things (IIoT). This work reports a self-powered wireless temperature and vibration monitoring system (WTVMS) based on a vibrational triboelectric nanogenerator (V-TENG) and a piezoelectric nanogenerator (PENG) for weak vibration energy collection and information sensing. Therein, the V-TENG can scavenge weak vibration energy down to 80 μm to power the system through a power management module, while the PENG is able to supply the frequency signal to the system by a comparison circuit. In an industrial vibration environment where the vibration frequency and amplitude are 20 Hz and 100 μm, respectively, the WTVMS can upload temperature and frequency information on the equipment to the cloud in combination with the narrowband IoT technology to realize real-time information monitoring. Furthermore, the WTVMS can work continuously for more than 2 months, during which the V-TENG can operate up to 100 million cycles, achieving ultrahigh stability and durability. By integrating weak vibration energy harvesting and active sensing technology, the WTVMS can be used for real-time online monitoring and early fault diagnosis of vibration equipment, which has great application prospects in industrial production, machinery manufacturing, traffic transportation, and intelligent IIoT.

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) paradigm is a key research area derived from the Internet of Things (IoT). The emergence of IIoT has enabled a revolution in manufacturing and production, through the employment of various embedded sensing devices connected by an IoT network, along with a collection of enabling technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and edge/fog computing. One of the unrivaled characteristics of IIoT is the inter-connectivity provided to industries; however, this characteristic might open the door for cyber-criminals to launch various attacks. In fact, one of the major challenges hindering the prevalent adoption of the IIoT paradigm is IoT security. Inevitably, there has been an inevitable increase in research proposals over the last decade to overcome these security concerns. To obtain an overview of this research area, conducting a literature survey of the published research is necessary, eliciting the various security requirements and their considerations. This paper provides a literature survey of IIoT security, focused on the period from 2017 to 2023. We identify IIoT security threats and classify them into three categories, based on the IIoT layer they exploit to launch these attacks. Additionally, we characterize the security requirements that these attacks violate. Finally, we highlight how emerging technologies, such as AI and edge/fog computing, can be adopted to address security concerns and enhance IIoT security.

Existing fault prediction algorithms based on deep learning have achieved good prediction performance. These algorithms treat all features fairly and assume that the progression of the equipment faults is stationary throughout the entire lifecycle. In fact, each feature has a different contribution to the accuracy of fault prediction, and the progress of equipment faults is non-stationary. More specifically, capturing the time point at which a fault first appears is more important for improving the accuracy of fault prediction. Moreover, the progress of the different faults of equipment varies significantly. Therefore, taking feature differences and time information into consideration, we propose a Ca usal- F actors- A ware Attention Net work, CaFANet , for equipment fault prediction in the Internet of Things. Experimental results and performance analysis confirm the superiority of the proposed algorithm over traditional machine learning methods with prediction accuracy improved by up to 15.3%.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution, also known as Industry 4.0, represents the rise of digital industrial technology that is propagating at an exponential rate compared to the previous three revolutions. Interoperability is a basis of production, where there is a continuous exchange of information between machines and production units that act autonomously and intelligently. Workers play a central role in making autonomous decisions and using advanced technological tools. It may involve using measures that distinguish individuals, and their behaviours and reactions. Increasing the level of security, allowing only authorized personnel access to designated areas, and promoting worker welfare can have a positive impact on the entire assembly line. Thus, capturing biometric information, with or without individuals' knowledge, could allow identity verification and monitoring of of their emotional and cognitive states during the daily actions of work life. From the study of the literature, we outline three macro categories in which the principles of Industry 4.0 are merged and the functionalities of biometric systems are exploited: security, health monitoring, and quality work life analysis. In this review, we present an overview of all biometric features used in the context of Industry 4.0 with a focus on their advantages, limitations, and practical use. Attention is also paid to future research directions for which new answers are being explored., (© The Author(s) 2023.)

The complexity of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) presents higher requirements for intrusion detection systems (IDSs). An adversarial attack is a threat to the security of machine learning-based IDSs. For such a complex situation, this paper analyses adversarial attackers' ability to deceive IDSs used in the IIoT and proposes the evaluation of an IDS with function-discarding adversarial attacks in the IIoT (EIFDAA), a framework that can evaluate the defence performance of machine learning-based IDSs against various adversarial attack algorithms. This framework is composed of two main processes: adversarial evaluation and adversarial training. Adversarial evaluation can diagnose IDS that is unfitting in adversarial environments. Then, adversarial training is used to treat the weak IDS. In this framework, five well-known adversarial attacks, the fast-gradient sign method (FGSM), basic iterative method (BIM), projected gradient descent (PGD), DeepFool and Wasserstein generative adversarial network with gradient penalty (WGAN-GP) are used to convert attack samples into adversarial samples to simulate the adversarial environment. This study evaluates the capability of mainstream machine learning techniques as intrusion detection models to defend against adversarial attacks, and retrains these detectors to improve the robustness of IDSs through adversarial training. In addition, the framework includes an adversarial attack model that discards the attack function of the attack samples in the IIoT. Through the experimental results on the X-IIoTID dataset, the dropped adversarial detection rate of these detectors to nearly zero demonstrates that an adversarial attack has black-box attack capabilities for these IDSs. Additionally, the improved IDSs retrained with adversarial samples can effectively defend against adversarial attackers while maintaining the original detection rate for the attack samples. EIFDAA is expected to be a solution that can be applied to IDS for improving the robustness in the IIoT., Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2023 The Authors.)

An intelligent transportation system (ITS) aims to improve traffic efficiency by integrating innovative sensing, control, and communications technologies. The industrial Internet of things (IIoT) and Industrial Revolution 4.0 recently merged to design the industrial Internet of things-intelligent transportation system (IIoT-ITS). IIoT sensing technologies play a significant role in acquiring raw data. The application continuously performs the complex task of managing traffic flows effectively based on several parameters, including the number of vehicles in the system, their location, and time. Traffic density estimation (TDE) is another important derived parameter desirable to keep track of the dynamic state of traffic volume. The expanding number of vehicles based on wireless connectivity provides new potential to predict traffic density more accurately and in real time as previously used methodologies. We explore the topic of assessing traffic density by using only a few simple metrics, such as the number of surrounding vehicles and disseminating beacons to roadside units and vice versa. This research paper investigates TDE techniques and presents a novel Markov model-based TDE technique for ITS. Finally, an OMNET++-based approach with an implementation of a significant modification of a traffic model combined with mathematical modeling of the Markov model is presented. It is intended for the study of real-world traffic traces, the identification of model parameters, and the development of simulated traffic.

A fundamental expectation of the stakeholders from the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is its trustworthiness and sustainability to avoid the loss of human lives in performing a critical task. A trustworthy IIoT-enabled network encompasses fundamental security characteristics such as trust, privacy, security, reliability, resilience and safety. The traditional security mechanisms and procedures are insufficient to protect these networks owing to protocol differences, limited update options, and older adaptations of the security mechanisms. As a result, these networks require novel approaches to increase trust-level and enhance security and privacy mechanisms. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a novel approach to improve the trustworthiness of IIoT-enabled networks. We propose an accurate and reliable supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) network-based cyberattack detection in these networks. The proposed scheme combines the deep learning-based Pyramidal Recurrent Units (PRU) and Decision Tree (DT) with SCADA-based IIoT networks. We also use an ensemble-learning method to detect cyberattacks in SCADA-based IIoT networks. The non-linear learning ability of PRU and the ensemble DT address the sensitivity of irrelevant features, allowing high detection rates. The proposed scheme is evaluated on fifteen datasets generated from SCADA-based networks. The experimental results show that the proposed scheme outperforms traditional methods and machine learning-based detection approaches. The proposed scheme improves the security and associated measure of trustworthiness in IIoT-enabled networks.

The industrial internet of things (IIoT), a leading technology to digitize industrial sectors and applications, requires the integration of edge and cloud computing, cyber security, and artificial intelligence to enhance its efficiency, reliability, and sustainability. However, the collection of heterogeneous data from individual sensors as well as monitoring and managing large databases with sufficient security has become a concerning issue for the IIoT framework. The development of a smart and integrated IIoT infrastructure can be a possible solution that can efficiently handle the aforementioned issues. This paper proposes an AI-integrated, secured IIoT infrastructure incorporating heterogeneous data collection and storing capability, global inter-communication, and a real-time anomaly detection model. To this end, smart data acquisition devices are designed and developed through which energy data are transferred to the edge IIoT servers. Hash encoding credentials and transport layer security protocol are applied to the servers. Furthermore, these servers can exchange data through a secured message queuing telemetry transport protocol. Edge and cloud databases are exploited to handle big data. For detecting the anomalies of individual electrical appliances in real-time, an algorithm based on a group of isolation forest models is developed and implemented on edge and cloud servers as well. In addition, remote-accessible online dashboards are implemented, enabling users to monitor the system. Overall, this study covers hardware design; the development of open-source IIoT servers and databases; the implementation of an interconnected global networking system; the deployment of edge and cloud artificial intelligence; and the development of real-time monitoring dashboards. Necessary performance results are measured, and they demonstrate elaborately investigating the feasibility of the proposed IIoT framework at the end.

Anomaly detection is one of the biggest issues of security in the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) due to the increase in cyber attack dangers for distributed devices and critical infrastructure networks. To face these challenges, the Intrusion Detection System (IDS) is suggested as a robust mechanism to protect and monitor malicious activities in IIoT networks. In this work, we suggest a new mechanism to improve the efficiency and robustness of the IDS system using Distributional Reinforcement Learning (DRL) and the Generative Adversarial Network (GAN). We aim to develop realistic and equilibrated distribution for a given feature set using artificial data in order to overcome the issue of data imbalance. We show how the GAN can efficiently assist the distributional RL-based-IDS in enhancing the detection of minority attacks. To assess the taxonomy of our approach, we verified the effectiveness of our algorithm by using the Distributed Smart Space Orchestration System (DS2OS) dataset. The performance of the normal DRL and DRL-GAN models in binary and multiclass classifications was evaluated based on anomaly detection datasets. The proposed models outperformed the normal DRL in the standard metrics of accuracy, precision, recall, and F1 score. We demonstrated that the GAN introduced in the training process of DRL with the aim of improving the detection of a specific class of data achieves the best results.

Three-dimensional (3D) printing, also known as additive manufacturing (AM), has already shown its potential in the fourth technological revolution (Industry 4.0), demonstrating remarkable applications in manufacturing, including of medical devices. The aim of this publication is to present the novel concept of support by artificial intelligence (AI) for quality control of AM of medical devices made of polymeric materials, based on the example of our own elbow exoskeleton. The methodology of the above-mentioned inspection process differs depending on the intended application of 3D printing as well as 3D scanning or reverse engineering. The use of artificial intelligence increases the versatility of this process, allowing it to be adapted to specific needs. This brings not only innovative scientific and technological solutions, but also a significant economic and social impact through faster operation, greater efficiency, and cost savings. The article also indicates the limitations and directions for the further development of the proposed solution.

The number of unsecured and portable Internet of Things (IoT) devices in the smart industry is growing exponentially. A diversity of centralized and distributed platforms have been implemented to defend against security attacks; however, these platforms are insecure because of their low storage capacities, high power utilization, single node failure, underutilized resources, and high end-to-end delay. Blockchain and Software-Defined Networking (SDN) are growing technologies to create a secure system and to ensure safe network connectivity. Blockchain technology offers a strong and trustworthy foundation to deal with threats and problems, including safety, privacy, adaptability, scalability, and security. However, the integration of blockchain with SDN is still in the implementation phase, which provides an efficient resource allocation and reduced latency that can overcome the issues of industrial IoT networks. We propose an energy-efficient blockchain-integrated software-defined networking architecture for Industrial IoT (IIoT) to overcome these challenges. We present a framework for implementing decentralized blockchain integrated with SDN for IIoT applications to achieve efficient energy utilization and cluster-head selection. Additionally, the blockchain-enabled distributed ledger ensures data consistency throughout the SDN controller network and keeps a record of the nodes enforced in the controller. The simulation result shows that the proposed model provides the best energy consumption, end-to-end latency, and overall throughput compared to the existing works.

In 1794, French Engineer Claude Chappe coordinated the deployment of a network of dozens of optical semaphores. These formed "strings" that were hundreds of kilometers long, allowing for nationwide telegraphy. The Chappe telegraph inspired future developments of long-range telecommunications using electrical telegraphs and, later, digital telecommunication. Long-range wireless networks are used today for the Internet of Things (IoT), including industrial, agricultural, and urban applications. The long-range radio technology used today offers approximately 10 km of range. Long-range IoT solutions use "star" topology: all devices need to be within range of a gateway device. This limits the area covered by one such network to roughly a disk of a 10 km radius. In this article, we demonstrate a 103 km low-power wireless multi-hop network by combining long-range IoT radio technology with Claude Chappe's vision. We placed 11 battery-powered devices at the former locations of the Chappe telegraph towers, hanging under helium balloons. We ran a proprietary protocol stack on these devices so they formed a 10-hop multi-hop network: devices forwarded the frames from the "previous" device in the chain. This is, to our knowledge, the longest low power multi-hop wireless network built to date, demonstrating the potential of combining long-range radio technology with multi-hop technology.

Because the majority of information in the industrial Internet of things (IIoT) is transmitted over an open and insecure channel, it is indispensable to design practical and secure authentication and key agreement protocols. Considering the weak computational power of sensors, many scholars have designed lightweight authentication protocols that achieve limited security properties. Moreover, these existing protocols are mostly implemented in a single-gateway scenario, whereas the multigateway scenario is not considered. To deal with these problems, this paper presents a novel three-factor authentication and key agreement protocol based on elliptic curve cryptography for IIoT environments. Based on the elliptic curve Diffie-Hellman problem, we present a protocol achieving desirable forward and backward secrecy. The proposed protocol applies to single-gateway and is also extended to multigateway simultaneously. A formal security analysis is described to prove the security of the proposed scheme. Finally, the comparison results demonstrate that our protocol provides more security attributes at a relatively lower computational cost.

The emergence of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) has accelerated the adoption of Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks (IWSNs) for numerous applications. Effective communication in such applications requires reduced end-to-end transmission time, balanced energy consumption and increased communication reliability. Graph routing, the main routing method in IWSNs, has a significant impact on achieving effective communication in terms of satisfying these requirements. Graph routing algorithms involve applying the first-path available approach and using path redundancy to transmit data packets from a source sensor node to the gateway. However, this approach can affect end-to-end transmission time by creating conflicts among transmissions involving a common sensor node and promoting imbalanced energy consumption due to centralised management. The characteristics and requirements of these networks encounter further complications due to the need to find the best path on the basis of the requirements of IWSNs to overcome these challenges rather than using the available first-path. Such a requirement affects the network performance and prolongs the network lifetime. To address this problem, we adopt a Covariance-Matrix Adaptation Evolution Strategy (CMA-ES) to create and select the graph paths. Firstly, this article proposes three best single-objective graph routing paths according to the IWSN requirements that this research focused on. The sensor nodes select best paths based on three objective functions of CMA-ES: the best Path based on Distance (PODis), the best Path based on residual Energy (POEng) and the best Path based on End-to-End transmission time (POE2E). Secondly, to enhance energy consumption balance and achieve a balance among IWSN requirements, we adapt the CMA-ES to select the best path with multiple-objectives, otherwise known as the Best Path of Graph Routing with a CMA-ES (BPGR-ES). A simulation using MATALB with different configurations and parameters is applied to evaluate the enhanced graph routing algorithms. Furthermore, the performance of PODis, POEng, POE2E and BPGR-ES is compared with existing state-of-the-art graph routing algorithms. The simulation results reveal that the BPGR-ES algorithm achieved 87.53% more balanced energy consumption among sensor nodes in the network compared to other algorithms, and the delivery of data packets of BPGR-ES reached 99.86%, indicating more reliable communication.

Recently, as new threats from attackers are discovered, the damage and scale of these threats are increasing. Vulnerabilities should be identified early, and countermeasures should be implemented to solve this problem. However, there are limitations to applying the vulnerability discovery framework used in practice. Existing frameworks have limitations in terms of the analysis target. If the analysis target is abstract, it cannot be easily applied to the framework. Therefore, this study proposes a framework for vulnerability discovery and countermeasures that can be applied to any analysis target. The proposed framework includes a structural analysis to discover vulnerabilities from a scenario composition, including analysis targets. In addition, a proof of concept is conducted to derive and verify threats that can actually occur through threat modeling. In this study, the open platform communication integrated architecture used in the industrial control system and industrial Internet of Things environment was selected as an analysis target. We find 30 major threats and four vulnerabilities based on the proposed framework. As a result, the validity of malicious client attacks using certificates and DoS attack scenarios using flooding were validated, and we create countermeasures for these vulnerabilities.

The combination of edge computing and deep learning helps make intelligent edge devices that can make several conditional decisions using comparatively secured and fast machine learning algorithms. An automated car that acts as the data-source node of an intelligent Internet of vehicles or IoV system is one of these examples. Our motivation is to obtain more accurate and rapid object detection using the intelligent cameras of a smart car. The competent supervision camera of the smart automobile model utilizes multimedia data for real-time automation in real-time threat detection. The corresponding comprehensive network combines cooperative multimedia data processing, Internet of Things (IoT) fact handling, validation, computation, precise detection, and decision making. These actions confront real-time delays during data offloading to the cloud and synchronizing with the other nodes. The proposed model follows a cooperative machine learning technique, distributes the computational load by slicing real-time object data among analogous intelligent Internet of Things nodes, and parallel vision processing between connective edge clusters. As a result, the system increases the computational rate and improves accuracy through responsible resource utilization and active-passive learning. We achieved low latency and higher accuracy for object identification through real-time multimedia data objectification.

The high number of devices with limited computational resources as well as limited communication resources are two characteristics of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). With Industry 4.0 emerges a strong demand for data processing in the edge, constrained primarily by the limited available resources. In industry, deep reinforcement learning (DRL) is increasingly used in robotics, job shop scheduling and supply chain. In this work, DRL is applied for intelligent resource allocation for industrial edge devices. An optimal usage of available resources of the IIoT devices should be achieved. Due to the structure of IIoT systems as well as security aspects, multi-agent systems (MASs) are preferred for decentralized decision-making. In our study, we build a network from physical and virtualized representative IIoT devices. The proposed approach is capable of dealing with several dynamic changes of the target system. Three aspects are considered when evaluating the performance of the MASs: overhead due to the MASs, improvement of the resource usage of the devices as well as latency and error rate. In summary, the agents' resource usage with respect to traffic, computing resources and time is very low. It was confirmed that the agents not only achieve the desired results in training but also that the learned behavior is transferable to a real system.

Due to the competitive relationship among different smart factories, equipment manufacturers cannot integrate the private information of all smart factories to train the intelligent manufacturing equipment fault prediction model and improve the accuracy of intelligent manufacturing equipment fault detection. The use of a low fault recognition rate model for smart factories will cause additional losses for them. In this work, we propose a blockchain-based privacy information security sharing scheme in Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) to solve the sharing problem of private information in smart factories. Firstly, we abstract smart factories as edge nodes and build decentralized, distributed trusted blockchain networks based on Ethereum clients on simulated edge devices and propose an Intelligent Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (IECDSA) to guarantee the ownership of shared information by edge nodes. Secondly, we propose the Reputation-based Delegated Proof of Stake (RDPoS) consensus algorithm to improve the security and reliability of the Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) consensus algorithm. Furthermore, we design and implement an incentive mechanism based on information attributes to increase the motivation of edge nodes to share information. Finally, the proposed solution is simulated. Through theoretical and simulation experiments, it is proved that the blockchain-based privacy information security sharing scheme in IIoT can improve the enthusiasm of edge nodes to share information on the premise of ensuring the security of information sharing.

With the widespread use of industrial Internet technology in intelligent production lines, the number of task requests generated by smart terminals is growing exponentially. Achieving rapid response to these massive tasks becomes crucial. In this paper we focus on the multi-objective task scheduling problem of intelligent production lines and propose a task scheduling strategy based on task priority. First, we set up a cloud-fog computing architecture for intelligent production lines and built the multi-objective function for task scheduling, which minimizes the service delay and energy consumption of the tasks. In addition, the improved hybrid monarch butterfly optimization and improved ant colony optimization algorithm (HMA) are used to search for the optimal task scheduling scheme. Finally, HMA is evaluated by rigorous simulation experiments, showing that HMA outperformed other algorithms in terms of task completion rate. When the number of nodes exceeds 10, the completion rate of all tasks is greater than 90%, which well meets the real-time requirements of the corresponding tasks in the intelligent production lines. In addition, the algorithm outperforms other algorithms in terms of maximum completion rate and power consumption.

Driven by the emerging mission-critical and data-intensive applications in industrial intelligent manufacturing, the software-defined network (SDN) based fiber-wireless access network (FiWi) is attracting considerable attention thanks to its capability of central control and large bandwidth. However, the heterogeneity of the network leads to new challenges, since the packet loss can be caused either by the poor channel quality of wireless links or network component failures. A novel and adaptive mechanism combining sparse random linear network coding with parallel transmission (SNC-PT) is proposed to achieve the fault-tolerance against high packet loss rate and any network element malfunction. We illustrate the benefits of using the SNC-PT mechanism to improve fault tolerance by characterizing the network performance with respect to the completion time and goodput along with its relationship to channel quality and node failures. We show that significant performance gains can be obtained in comparison with conventional uncoded transmission based on transmission control protocol (TCP). The simulation results show that the SNC-PT mechanism is fault-tolerant, while it can significantly shorten the data transmission completion time to at least 12% of the baseline and increase the goodput by about 10% compared to other coding schemes such as random linear network coding.

Continuing the evolution towards Industry 4.0, the industrial communication protocols represent a significant topic of interest, as real-time data exchange between multiple devices constitute the pillar of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) scenarios. Although the legacy protocols are still persistent in the industry, the transition was initiated by the key Industry 4.0 facilitating protocol, the Open Platform Communication Unified Architecture (OPC UA). OPC UA has to reach the envisioned applicability, and it therefore has to consider coexistence with other emerging real-time oriented protocols in the production lines. The Data Distribution Service (DDS) will certainly be present in future architectures in some areas as robots, co-bots, and compact units. The current paper proposes a solution to evaluate the real-time coexistence of OPC UA and DDS protocols, functioning in parallel and in a gateway context. The purpose is to confirm the compatibility and feasibility between the two protocols alongside a general definition of criteria and expectations from an architectural point of view, pointing out advantages and disadvantages in a neutral manner, shaping a comprehensive view of the possibilities. The researched architecture is meant to comply with both performance comparison scenarios and interaction scenarios over a gateway application. Considering the industrial tendencies, the developed solution is applied using non-ideal infrastructures to provide a more feasible and faster applicability in the production lines.

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is one of the most demanding IoT applications. The insertion of industries in the context of smart cities and other smart environments, allied with new communication technologies such as 5G, brings a new horizon of possibilities and new requirements. These requirements include low latency, the support of a massive quantity of devices and data, and the need to support horizontal communications between devices at the edge level. To make this feasible, it is necessary to establish an IIoT-to-cloud continuum distributing federated brokers across the infrastructure and providing scalability and interoperability. To attend this type of application, we present the Helix Multi-layered IoT platform and its operating modes. We report and discuss its real-world deployment in the Aveiro Tech City Living Lab in Aveiro, Portugal with functional and performance tests. We tested device-to-device communication across edge and core layers and also interconnected the infrastructure with one in São Paulo, Brazil, replicating the use of a global industry. The successful deployment validates the use of a Helix Multi-layered IoT platform as a suitable backend platform for IIoT applications capable of establishing the IIoT-to-cloud continuum. It also helps for the deployment of other applications in such a domain.

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) refers to the use of smart sensors, actuators, fast communication protocols, and efficient cybersecurity mechanisms to improve industrial processes and applications. In large industrial networks, smart devices generate large amounts of data, and thus IIoT frameworks require intelligent, robust techniques for big data analysis. Artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning (DL) techniques produce promising results in IIoT networks due to their intelligent learning and processing capabilities. This survey article assesses the potential of DL in IIoT applications and presents a brief architecture of IIoT with key enabling technologies. Several well-known DL algorithms are then discussed along with their theoretical backgrounds and several software and hardware frameworks for DL implementations. Potential deployments of DL techniques in IIoT applications are briefly discussed. Finally, this survey highlights significant challenges and future directions for future research endeavors.

This paper is focused on the analysis of unfairness of random media access in Local Operating Networks (LON), which is one of the commercial platforms of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). The unfairness in accessing the LON channel is introduced by a collision avoidance mechanism in the predictive p -persistent CSMA protocol adopted at the media access control layer. The study on the bandwidth share in predictive p -persistent CSMA calls for the analysis of multiple memoryless backoff. In this paper, it is shown that the channel access in LON systems is unfair in the short term for medium traffic load conditions, and in the long term for heavy loaded networks. Furthermore, it is explained that the average bandwidth allocated to a particular node is determined implicitly by the load scenario, while an actual node bandwidth fluctuates in time according to stochastic dynamics of the predictive p -persistent CSMA. Next, it is formally proven that the average bandwidth available to a node is a linear function of its backoff state and does not depend on backoff states of the other stations. Finally, it is demonstrated that possibly unfair bandwidth share in LON networks determined implicitly by load scenario is stable because, with lowering a fraction of actual network bandwidth accessible by a given station, the probability to decrease it in the future also drops.

Recently, the operation of distribution systems does not depend on the state or utility based on centralized procedures, but rather the decentralization of the decisions of the distribution companies whose objectives are the efficiency of interconnectivity. Therefore, distribution companies are exposed to greater risks, and due to this, the need to make decisions based on increasingly reliable models has grown up considerably. Therefore, we present a survey of key aspects, technologies, protocols, and case studies of the current and future trend of Smart Grids. This work proposes a taxonomy of a large number of technologies in Smart Grids and their applications in scenarios of Smart Networks, Neural Networks, Blockchain, Industrial Internet of Things, or Software-Defined Networks. Therefore, this work summarizes the main features of 94 research articles ranging the last four years. We classify these survey, according Smart Grid Network Topologies, because it can group as the main axis the sensors applied to Smart Grids, as it shows us the interconnection forms generalization of the Smart Networks with respect to the sensors found in a home or industry.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the hottest topics in our society, especially when it comes to solving data-analysis problems. Industry are conducting their digital shifts, and AI is becoming a cornerstone technology for making decisions out of the huge amount of (sensors-based) data available in the production floor. However, such technology may be disappointing when deployed in real conditions. Despite good theoretical performances and high accuracy when trained and tested in isolation, a Machine-Learning (M-L) model may provide degraded performances in real conditions. One reason may be fragility in treating properly unexpected or perturbed data. The objective of the paper is therefore to study the robustness of seven M-L and Deep-Learning (D-L) algorithms, when classifying univariate time-series under perturbations. A systematic approach is proposed for artificially injecting perturbations in the data and for evaluating the robustness of the models. This approach focuses on two perturbations that are likely to happen during data collection. Our experimental study, conducted on twenty sensors' datasets from the public University of California Riverside (UCR) repository, shows a great disparity of the models' robustness under data quality degradation. Those results are used to analyse whether the impact of such robustness can be predictable-thanks to decision trees-which would prevent us from testing all perturbations scenarios. Our study shows that building such a predictor is not straightforward and suggests that such a systematic approach needs to be used for evaluating AI models' robustness.

Functional safety networks are becoming of paramount importance in industrial systems, due to the progressive innovation introduced by the Industry 4.0 paradigm, characterized by high production flexibility, reliability and scalability. In this context, new and challenging applications have emerged such as hyperautomation, which refers to the combination of machine vision, robotics, communication, and learning, with the explicit involvement of humans. This requires the pervasive and ubiquitous connectivity encompassed by the Industrial Internet of Things, typically achieved via wireless systems. As an example, wireless communications are today fundamental to open up to new categories of autonomous devices that can actively collaborate with human personnel in the production process. This challenging scenario has important implications for safety. Indeed, a reliable coordination among sensors, actuators and computing systems is required to provide satisfactory levels of safety, especially in the case of innovative processes and technologies, such as mobile and collaborative robotics. Hence, it becomes imperative to ensure the correct transfer of safety-critical data via communication networks. In this paper, we address the challenges concerned with functional safety networks and protocols in Industrial Internet of Things ecosystems. We first introduce the design characteristics of functional safety networks and discuss the adoption of safety protocols over wireless networks. Then, we specifically address one of such protocols, namely Fail Safety over EtherCAT (FSoE), and provide the results of an extensive experimental session carried out exploiting a prototype system, implemented using commercial devices based on a WiFi network. Finally, the outcomes of the experiments are used as a basis for a discussion about future trends of functional safety in the Industrial Internet of Things era.

Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) ensures reliable and efficient data exchanges among the industrial processes using Artificial Intelligence (AI) within the cyber-physical systems. In the IIoT ecosystem, devices of industrial applications communicate with each other with little human intervention. They need to act intelligently to safeguard the data confidentiality and devices' authenticity. The ability to gather, process, and store real-time data depends on the quality of data, network connectivity, and processing capabilities of these devices. Pervasive Edge Computing (PEC) is gaining popularity nowadays due to the resource limitations imposed on the sensor-embedded IIoT devices. PEC processes the gathered data at the network edge to reduce the response time for these devices. However, PEC faces numerous research challenges in terms of secured communication, network connectivity, and resource utilization of the edge servers. To address these challenges, we propose a secured and intelligent communication scheme for PEC in an IIoT-enabled infrastructure. In the proposed scheme, forged identities of adversaries, i.e., Sybil devices, are detected by IIoT devices and shared with edge servers to prevent upstream transmission of their malicious data. Upon Sybil attack detection, each edge server executes a parallel Artificial Bee Colony (pABC) algorithm to perform optimal network configuration of IIoT devices. Each edge server performs the job migration to their neighboring servers for load balancing and better network performance, based on their processing and storage capabilities. The experimental results justify the efficiency of our proposed scheme in terms of Sybil attack detection, the convergence curves of our pABC algorithm, delay, throughput, and control overhead of data communication using PEC for IIoT.

The ongoing digitization of industry and agriculture can benefit significantly from optical spectroscopy. In many cases, optical spectroscopy enables the estimation of properties such as substance concentrations and compositions. Spectral data can be acquired and evaluated in real time, and the results can be integrated directly into process and automation units, saving resources and costs. Multivariate data analysis is needed to integrate optical spectrometers as sensors. Therefore, a spectrometer with integrated artificial intelligence (AI) called SmartSpectrometer and its interface is presented. The advantages of the SmartSpectrometer are exemplified by its integration into a harvesting vehicle, where quality is determined by predicting sugar and acid in grapes in the field.

One of the essential concerns of Internet of Things (IoT) is in industrial systems or data architecture to support the evolutions in transportation and logistics. Considering the Industrial IoT (IIoT) openness, the need for accessibility, availability, and searching of data has rapidly increased. The primary purpose of this research is to propose an Efficient Two-Dimensional Filter (ETDF) to store multimedia data of IIoT applications in a specific format to achieve faster response and dynamic updating. This filter consists of a two-dimensional array and a hash function integrated into a cuckoo filter for efficient use of memory. This study evaluates the scalability of the filter by increasing the number of requests from 10,000 to 100,000. To assess the performance of the proposed filter, we measure the parameters of access time and lookup message latency. The results show that the proposed filter improves the access time by 12%, compared to a Fast Two-Dimensional Filter (FTDF). Moreover, it improves memory usage by 20% compared to FTDF. Experiments indicate a better access time of the proposed filter compared to other filters (i.e., Bloom, quotient, cuckoo, and FTD filters). Insertion and deletion times are essential parameters in comparing filters, so they are also analyzed., Competing Interests: The authors declare there are no competing interests., (©2021 Goudarzi and Rahmani.)

Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) applications are being used more and more frequently. Data collected by various sensors can be used to provide innovative digital services supporting increasing efficiency or cost reduction. The implementation of such applications requires the integration and analysis of heterogeneous data coming from a broad variety of sensors. To support these steps, this paper introduces OPAL, a software toolbox consolidating several software components for the semantically annotated integration and analysis of IoT-data. Data storage is realized in a standardized and INSPIRE-compliant way utilizing the SensorThings API. Supporting a broad variety of use cases, OPAL provides several import adapters to access data sources with various protocols (e.g., the OPC UA protocol, which is often used in industrial environments). In addition, a unified management and execution environment, called PERMA, is introduced to allow the programming language independent integration of algorithms.

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) play a key role in the ecosystem of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and the definition of today's Industry 4.0. These WSNs have the ability to sensor large amounts of data, thanks to their easy scalability. WSNs allow the deployment of a large number of self-configuring nodes and the ability to automatically reorganize in case of any change in the topology. This huge sensorization capacity, together with its interoperability with IP-based networks, allows the systems of Industry 4.0 to be equipped with a powerful tool with which to digitalize a huge amount of variables in the different industrial processes. The IEEE 802.15.4e standard, together with the access mechanism to the Time Slotted Channel Hopping medium (TSCH) and the dynamic Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks (RPL), allow deployment of networks with the high levels of robustness and reliability necessary in industrial scenarios. However, these configurations have some disadvantages in the deployment and synchronization phases of the networks, since the time it takes to synchronize the nodes is penalized compared to other solutions in which access to the medium is done randomly and without channel hopping. This article proposes an analytical model to characterize the behavior of this type of network, based on TSCH and RPL during the phases of deployment along with synchronization and connection to the RPL network. Through this model, validated by simulation and real tests, it is possible to parameterize different configurations of a WSN network based on TSCH and RPL.

In the design and development process of fog computing solutions for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), we need to take into consideration the characteristics of the industrial environment that must be met. These include low latency, predictability, response time, and operating with hard real-time compiling. A starting point may be the reference fog architecture released by the OpenFog Consortium (now part of the Industrial Internet Consortium), but it has a high abstraction level and does not define how to integrate the fieldbuses and devices into the fog system. Therefore, the biggest challenges in the design and implementation of fog solutions for IIoT is the diversity of fieldbuses and devices used in the industrial field and ensuring compliance with all constraints in terms of real-time compiling, low latency, and predictability. Thus, this paper proposes a solution for a fog node that addresses these issues and integrates industrial fieldbuses. For practical implementation, there are specialized systems on chips (SoCs) that provides support for real-time communication with the fieldbuses through specialized coprocessors and peripherals. In this paper, we describe the implementation of the fog node on a system based on Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC ZU3EG A484 SoC.