Currently, many sensor data networks are managed using machine-to-machine (M2M) or machine type communications (MTCs) technologies. One of the key factors for the success of sensor data networks is in developments of international M2M/MTC standards. As third generation partnership project (3GPP) and oneM2M are actively working on standardising M2M/MTC specifications for 3GPP core networks and M2M common service layer, this study reviews the ongoing activities in 3GPP and oneM2M standardisation bodies, in the area of machine type or M2M communications, focusing on enhancing device, service platform, and mobile network technologies that can be useful in achieving cost efficiencies in sensor data networks.

This study presents an architecture of green sensor mobile cloud computing which integrates sensor network and mobile network with cloud computing. In the proposed scheme, the sensor data are transmitted to the cloud through a mobile device. To develop the proposed architecture both the indoor and outdoor region are considered. For indoor region light weight access point and home node base station are used by the mobile device for sensor data transmission to the cloud, whereas for outdoor region macrocell and microcell base stations are used. Simulation results present that using home node base station the power consumption at indoor region can be reduced by ∼10% than the light weight access point, and using microcell base station at outdoor region the power consumption can be reduced by ∼30% than the macrocell base station. Hence, using home node base station and microcell base station green sensor mobile cloud computing can be obtained at indoor and outdoor regions, respectively. In this study, an experimental analysis of the proposed architecture is also performed.

Equipping communication apparatuses with energy-harvesting technology could achieve system sustainability without human intervention. Though the harvested energy of existing techniques is limited and intermittent, it is sufficient to power devices in low-power-consuming machine-to-machine (M2M) communications. However, due to the large number of devices with time-varying energy arrival, the medium access control protocol should be redesigned. This study focuses on studying energy-harvesting M2M uplink cellular communications from the protocol design perspective, considering the properties of M2M and energy harvesting. The authors first explore the performance of two fundamental schemes: push-based and pull-based random access channel (RACH) procedures in terms of preamble collision probability, throughput, energy efficiency, and packet delay. In the push-based scheme, devices are self-energy-aware and there is no schedule signalling cost. However, the performance degrades as the device number increases. The pull-based scheme is an alternative to have stable throughput and energy efficiency, with sacrifice of the extra scheduling cost and increasing latency. As a result, a hybrid scheme is proposed to adaptively select the preamble transmission schemes based on the estimated device number. The hybrid scheme guarantees adequate packet delay under different traffic loads and varying energy levels.

Software defined networking (SDN) is an emerging networking architectural framework which aims to provide the complete separation of data forwarding plane and control plane. The two main benefits of SDN are lower cost and improved management. OpenFlow is a well-known architecture that facilitates SDN. The core idea of OpenFlow is to control the switches or routers through programming from the centralised controller. The connection reliability is a major concern for network service providers to meet quality of service requirements. Hence, an investigation of network resiliency is required for this new paradigm. The resiliency is the network's ability to survive against attacks and other component failures. This study investigates and compares different data forwarding algorithms currently supported by the POX OpenFlow controller standards for network protection and restoration. A thorough investigation of existing approaches or standards in SDN not only is essential for the research community to better understand the topic, but also plays a crucial role in realising or improving network resiliency or protection and restoration in practice. The authors also provide the extension of one of the components in POX for improvement. The restoration scheme in the current POX components as well as in the modified component is evaluated and compared.

Cooperative linear dispersion coding (LDC) can support arbitrary configurations of source nodes and destination nodes in virtual multi-input–multi-output systems. In this study, the authors investigate two spatial diversity applications of cooperative LDC for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-based wireless sensor systems in order to achieve space–time/frequency (ST/SF) diversity gains when transmitting over time-/frequency-selective fading channels. Cooperative LDC-aided ST-/SF-OFDM is flexible in configuring various numbers of cooperative source nodes and time-slots or frequency-tones. Their results show that the ST-OFDM scheme is sensitive to exploiting diversity gains, subject to the impact of varying channel Doppler spreads; while the performance of SF-OFDM is mainly subject to delay spread. Specifically, when the system involves more than two cooperative nodes, the cooperative LDC-aided ST-/SF-OFDM outperforms the cooperative orthogonal block codes (e.g. Tarokh's codes) aided ST-/SF-OFDM, when communicating over a higher Doppler/delay spread.

Recent developments in the field of micro-electro mechanical systems and wireless sensor networks made revolutionary changes in industrial automation and process control. However, harsh and complex industrial environment pose great challenges toward real-time and reliable wireless communication. This necessitates a routing protocol that fulfils the industrial current real-time, reliable routing needs and opens the door for new applications that may arise in future. This study presents critical data reliable routing protocol for industrial real-time applications. That dynamically selects the reliable relay node by considering the data type, deadline time along with the recent parameters of the network. These parameters are selected in such a way that the critical data forwarding follow shorter path over speedy, reliable links and non-critical data forwarding follow the path over energy efficient nodes. In this way, the relay node selection process balances the network load that the shorter path remains available for the shorter deadline-time critical data. The results show improvement in timeliness data delivery along enhanced network life. As far as a node failure is concerned, the forwarding node fails to access potential relay node. Therefore, following transmission energy regulation mechanism optimises this problem with enhancing timeliness data delivery.