**5. Application areas of IoT and IoE**

### **5.1. Applications based on the IoT**

*3.3.11. Artificial intelligence (AI)*

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needs without conscious mediation [7].

**3.4. IoT architecture**

Intelligence has been embedded and hidden in the network connected devices that help people to ease their daily activities [7]. AI refers then to "electronic environments and devices that are sensitive and responsive to people's presence and activities" [7]. AI is considered "*embedded,"* because the devices used are seamlessly embedded within people's environment, "*context-aware"* because these devices are used to know people's situations and context conditions, "*personalized"* because they can be customized to the needs of users, "*adaptive"* because it changes depending on the users' needs, and "*anticipatory"* because it can predict the user

A reference model has not yet been suggested for the IoT architecture, although there are an ever-increasing number of proposed architectures for this new trend such as the ones described in [20–24]. Among the most common architectures of IoT we find the 5 layers model described in [25]. The first layer of this model is named the *objects layer/perception layer* and represents the physical objects, for example, sensors, actuators, etc. of the IoT that serve to collect information using standardized plug-and-play mechanisms to serve the heterogeneous devices [25]. The second layer is the *object abstraction layer*, which transfers the collected data from the objects layer to the service management layer using various technologies such as RFID, 3G, 4G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and handles data management processes and cloud computing [25]. The third layer is the *service management layer*, which is the middleware layer that processes the received data, delivers the processed data and services to the interested applications over the network, and makes decisions [25]. The fourth layer is the *application layer* and is the one responsible for providing the requested smart services to the customers or connected applications that meet their needs in the various domains such as healthcare, transportation, and industrial automation [25]. The fifth layer is the *business layer*, which supports decision-making processes based on big data processing and analysis, manages all the underlying four layers of the IoT architec-

ture, and enhances the services provided to the users and maintains their privacy [25].

[27], supply chain management [28], and healthcare scenarios [29].

**4. Internet of Everything (IoE)**

In Ref. [10] we proposed and developed a flexible middleware solution architecture that has five layers and is compatible with the IoT architecture discussed above. We developed the proposed architecture more and applied it to e-health in [26]. The FlexRFID middleware in [10] serves getting data from the heterogeneous automatic identification devices and sensors, processing them, applying the business rules specified by the connected applications, and disseminating the processed data to the interested applications. Our middleware, that is, FlexRFID was tested with multiple application domains, such as smart library management

The Internet of Everything (IoE) concept is a fairly new concept that was developed by Gartner in 2015, and there is still confusion about the difference between IoE and IoT [30]. The IoE as Information generated and communicated by the enabling objects in IoT can drive many possible applications in many domains such as supply chain management (SCM), transportation, healthcare, and environment and disaster monitoring, etc. [9].

#### *5.1.1. Logistics and supply chain management (SCM)*

In IoT society, many logistics applications have been developed to track movements of goods in real time using the different technologies discussed above, such as the systems reported in [34–36]. The data scanned from the RFID tags, barcodes, NFC, and mobile phones were transmitted to the logistics center, and then transmitted through diversified transmission protocols such as WSNs, GSM network, 3G, 4G, or even 5G network to be processed [9]. Some example applications of the IoT in logistics and SCM as reported in [9] include *Supermarket chain management* [34], which tracks goods in real time using WSNs, barcodes, and RFIDs, and controls automatically the stock; *Aspire RFID* [37], which is "a middleware with a range of tools to facilitate RFID deployment, in addition it uses the session initiation protocol (SIP) to detect the location and mobility management of RFID tags" [9], *logistic geographical information detection UIS* [38], and others. The use of sensors in SCM provides rich data about supply chains and also on conditions and location of goods in real time [39]. This helps supporting "circular economy," because tracking a product from manufacture to recycling helps enabling new ways for resource optimization [39]. To guarantee an efficient implementation of IoT, applications in SCM should ensure some basic capabilities such as *autonomous control* by having small decentralized control units [9], *smart logistics entities* by using sensors to track items and protect them from thieves by triggering alarms when a set of conditions is met [9], *unique addressability* by using a set of technologies such as RFID and WSNs to help tracking "the right product, right quantity, at the right time, in the right place, satisfying the right conditions, and having the right price" [9], and *enterprise resource planning* (ERP) interface to help communicate to the customer the right information about the products [9].

#### *5.1.2. Transportation*

IoT is considered to have many advantages for solving the numerous challenging transportation problems, and many applications such as the *road condition monitoring and alert system* reported in [40] were developed to communicate the road conditions in real time and alert their users about any congestions or existing problems such as accidents [40]. Other applications such as *license plate identification* as reported in [41] have been implemented to solve the problem of finding parking spaces and securing the vehicles [41]. *Electric vehicles* have also been supported by governments in many countries "to reduce the fuel cost and the impact of global warming"; systems such as the one in [42], that is, remote performance monitoring system and simulation testing, have been designed "to monitor the performance of lithium-ion (Li-on) batteries for electric vehicles" by using WSNs to report the route's status to the drivers and help them save their vehicles' batteries. Using IoT nowadays, many electric vehicles' manufacturers offer applications that can remotely monitor the vehicles' batteries power and schedule their charging [39]. As reported in [39], in the future, fully autonomous vehicles are expected to be integrated in a smart transportation system, and a trial system has been implemented in Newcastle that gives signals to drivers about when to adjust their speed if traffic lights are about to change [39]. Also parking sensors have being tested in Milton Keynes [39]. IoT has been also used at London City Airport to improve customer experience and passenger flow through the use of sensors deployed throughout the airport that send data to passengers' smartphone applications to help them order from shops and know about queue times [39]. Other systems such as transport vehicle monitoring system based on IoT in [43] uses GPS, RFID, and 3G/4G technologies to monitor and administer the status of goods in real time [43]. IoT is also used nowadays in vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) and is driving the evolution of Internet of Vehicles (IoV) paradigm. In conclusion, the IoT-based applications in the transportation field should at least include the following units as suggested by authors in [9]: a *vehicle system* equipped with GPS and wireless communication technologies [9], the *station system*, which is "responsible for receiving data from the monitoring center and displaying real-time transit vehicle information" [9], and the *monitor center*, which is "responsible for comparing the received real-time data with events in the database and integrate the road traffic information for visualization" [9].

#### *5.1.3. Healthcare*

*5.1.1. Logistics and supply chain management (SCM)*

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cate to the customer the right information about the products [9].

*5.1.2. Transportation*

In IoT society, many logistics applications have been developed to track movements of goods in real time using the different technologies discussed above, such as the systems reported in [34–36]. The data scanned from the RFID tags, barcodes, NFC, and mobile phones were transmitted to the logistics center, and then transmitted through diversified transmission protocols such as WSNs, GSM network, 3G, 4G, or even 5G network to be processed [9]. Some example applications of the IoT in logistics and SCM as reported in [9] include *Supermarket chain management* [34], which tracks goods in real time using WSNs, barcodes, and RFIDs, and controls automatically the stock; *Aspire RFID* [37], which is "a middleware with a range of tools to facilitate RFID deployment, in addition it uses the session initiation protocol (SIP) to detect the location and mobility management of RFID tags" [9], *logistic geographical information detection UIS* [38], and others. The use of sensors in SCM provides rich data about supply chains and also on conditions and location of goods in real time [39]. This helps supporting "circular economy," because tracking a product from manufacture to recycling helps enabling new ways for resource optimization [39]. To guarantee an efficient implementation of IoT, applications in SCM should ensure some basic capabilities such as *autonomous control* by having small decentralized control units [9], *smart logistics entities* by using sensors to track items and protect them from thieves by triggering alarms when a set of conditions is met [9], *unique addressability* by using a set of technologies such as RFID and WSNs to help tracking "the right product, right quantity, at the right time, in the right place, satisfying the right conditions, and having the right price" [9], and *enterprise resource planning* (ERP) interface to help communi-

IoT is considered to have many advantages for solving the numerous challenging transportation problems, and many applications such as the *road condition monitoring and alert system* reported in [40] were developed to communicate the road conditions in real time and alert their users about any congestions or existing problems such as accidents [40]. Other applications such as *license plate identification* as reported in [41] have been implemented to solve the problem of finding parking spaces and securing the vehicles [41]. *Electric vehicles* have also been supported by governments in many countries "to reduce the fuel cost and the impact of global warming"; systems such as the one in [42], that is, remote performance monitoring system and simulation testing, have been designed "to monitor the performance of lithium-ion (Li-on) batteries for electric vehicles" by using WSNs to report the route's status to the drivers and help them save their vehicles' batteries. Using IoT nowadays, many electric vehicles' manufacturers offer applications that can remotely monitor the vehicles' batteries power and schedule their charging [39]. As reported in [39], in the future, fully autonomous vehicles are expected to be integrated in a smart transportation system, and a trial system has been implemented in Newcastle that gives signals to drivers about when to adjust their speed if traffic lights are about to change [39]. Also parking sensors have being tested in Milton Keynes [39]. IoT has been also used at London City Airport to improve customer experience and passenger flow through the use of sensors deployed throughout the airport that send data to passengers' Many IoT solutions were implemented to improve human health and well-being and facilitate access to healthcare in rural areas such as the one described in Ref. [44]. The solution in [44] is based on RFID data communicated by active RFID tags worn by people who register with the rural healthcare center (RHC). The RFID tags are used to continuously monitor and control the patients' healthcare parameters such as temperature, blood pressure, etc., detect any change in them, and communicate them to the RHC doctor. IoT-driven healthcare systems and technologies can be used for prevention and early identification of diseases [39] and are basically used for hospitalized patients whose status requires continuous monitoring and attention, or for monitoring an aging family member at home [47]. Other examples of applications include the integration of a variety of devices in the patient's environment such as the use of smartphones to monitor vital signs and transmit health data directly to the care centers [45]. Some advanced systems such as the one in [46], that is, noncontact health monitoring system (NCHMS) uses classification and recognition-based algorithms and equipment equipped with cameras and microphones to analyze the user's facial expressions and detect any anomalies. In conclusion, the IoT-based applications in the healthcare field should at least include the following units as suggested by authors in [9]: *Tracking and monitoring* using any wearable WSN or RFID devices to generate and communicate health vital signs, *remote service* such as telemedicine and home diagnosis [47], which is necessary to provide emergency help to patients suffering from critical illnesses, *information management* used to manage the large amounts of data produced and captured about a patient such as medical history of medications and allergies, and *cross-organization integration*, which ensures an integration and communication among the hospital information systems, the patients' homes, and other medical care centers [9].

#### *5.1.4. Environment and disaster*

IoT technologies are used nowadays to minimize the effects of natural disasters by providing alerts and helping in the disaster recovery process [9]. Many examples of systems exist in the literature for environment monitoring such as "Health Monitoring and Risk Evaluation of Earthen Sites (HMRE2S) model" suggested by Xiao et al [48]; which collects "temperature, humidity, and light information to evaluate the healthy level of the earthen sites by applying the concept of artificial antibodies to identify unusual environmental factors" [48], and "*Smart heat and electricity management transportation"* suggested by Kyriazis et al. [49] that "uses smart meters for electricity consumption and mobile sensors to assess the effect of real-time electricity usage on the energy consumption of buildings and individual appliances, etc." [9]. In conclusion, the IoT-based applications in the environment and disaster field should at least include the following components as suggested by authors in [9]: *environment sensors*, which help gathering and processing information such as humidity, temperature, and pressure from the environment, *WSN and mobile communication* (3G and 4G) helping to communicate the sensed information to other users or systems and trigger the necessary alerts, and *participatory sensing applications*, which, by the use of multiple sensors and devices to capture the environment data and sense the physical world, and to help making the right decisions when facing a disaster, for example [9].

#### *5.1.5. Smart home and smart buildings*

Home automation can be made possible using IoT technologies to allow us to remotely control our home's appliances based on our needs [50]. Example applications include but are not limited to monitoring of utility meters, energy, and water supply to avoid overloading or leaks, and gardening sensors, which could be used to water plants according to their needs and measure their vitals such as light, humidity, and moisture [50]. Connected to the IoT, smart buildings' energy and maintenance could be optimized and predicted, along with increased comfort, security, and safety for the building users [39].

#### *5.1.6. Smart agriculture*

The IoT technologies, such as field-based sensors, can be used to monitor soil humidity, moisture, and nutrition, automatically adjust the temperature to maximize agricultural production, and communicate with weather stations to get the latest forecasts [50, 39]. They can also help for an accurate fertilization and watering [50]. Sensors used for animal tracking help in monitoring livestock for disease and accidents, and providing better opportunities for husbandry [39]. "Smart farms" may also share data with other farms, consumers, and regulators [39]. The major opportunities provided by IoT for agriculture are maximizing yields by automatically identifying damaging weeds and reporting their location to farm owners or autonomous weeding machines, improving food traceability by tracking food and informing consumers about their provenance, origin, and production methods, and tackling environmental challenges such as the use of 3D accelerometers to detect injuries in cows and monitor them within the livestock, which allows for an early adoption of preventive measures [39].

### **5.2. Applications based on the IoE**

The IoE has been used to help "automated and people-based processes" by extracting and analyzing real-time data from the millions of connected sensors [51]. IoE has been also used for environment sustainability, public policy goals, and economic goals [51]. The use of IoE has been facilitated by the expansion of cloud computing, which helps connecting everything online [51]. "Smart cities" will benefit from IoE to address city-specific concerns along with big data processing, for example, using sensors in monitoring highways and traffic, education, healthcare, agriculture, and environment [51]. These cities will most likely enhance the living conditions of citizens in the future by forming "Smart + connected communities" [51]. IoE will be considered a critical element in implementing new features of the future cities such as *smart grid* and traffic control [51, 52]. According to Cisco, "cities stand to benefit the most from IoE related projects, implementations and platforms," which helps providing realtime, context-specific intelligence and analytics to serve the city's specific needs [53]. Many examples of how Cisco was involved in developing new models for cities have been included in [53]; however, there exist many challenges for the IoE-enabled cities such as the need for new operating models, coherent IoE deployment plans, new ways to preserve the cities assets such as data, new governance models, and the need to face societal challenges such as pollution, and CO2 emissions [53]. IoE technology architecture for cities is suggested in [53], which is a multilayered architecture that provides handling millions of devices and sensors, processing and streaming of big data and decisions, storage and analytics of data, and APIs for adding new services or applications [53].

IoE is also expected to ensure safety in the mining industry of fossil fuels [53]. Another use of IoE is in the educational sector where it facilitates access of students to E-learning and M-Learning, and provides more feedback and progress monitoring [51]. As reported by Zielinski [52], "The IoE provides a new business model for companies, which ultimately implies lowering the cost of energy distribution, automate billing and service calls as well as providing proactive response to environmental condition" [52].

In an IoE world, we can find multiple applications integrated in multiple ways: for example, public and private organizations usually integrate IoE applications with their existing solutions such as ERP, SCM, CRM, human resources, etc. [54]. This high level integration allows for better service guarantee and higher security [54]. IoE solutions are also expected to access data from a single-purpose device initially, an example of this is connected automobiles running multiple applications such as location detection, emergency calls, etc. [54].
