Muhammad Ayaz

Bio: Muhammad Ayaz is an academic researcher from University of Tabuk. The author has contributed to research in topics: Wireless sensor network & Routing protocol. The author has an hindex of 14, co-authored 36 publications receiving 1099 citations. Previous affiliations of Muhammad Ayaz include Universiti Teknologi Petronas & Petronas.

Internet-of-Things (IoT)-Based Smart Agriculture: Toward Making the Fields Talk

Abstract: Despite the perception people may have regarding the agricultural process, the reality is that today's agriculture industry is data-centered, precise, and smarter than ever. The rapid emergence of the Internet-of-Things (IoT) based technologies redesigned almost every industry including “smart agriculture” which moved the industry from statistical to quantitative approaches. Such revolutionary changes are shaking the existing agriculture methods and creating new opportunities along a range of challenges. This article highlights the potential of wireless sensors and IoT in agriculture, as well as the challenges expected to be faced when integrating this technology with the traditional farming practices. IoT devices and communication techniques associated with wireless sensors encountered in agriculture applications are analyzed in detail. What sensors are available for specific agriculture application, like soil preparation, crop status, irrigation, insect and pest detection are listed. How this technology helping the growers throughout the crop stages, from sowing until harvesting, packing and transportation is explained. Furthermore, the use of unmanned aerial vehicles for crop surveillance and other favorable applications such as optimizing crop yield is considered in this article. State-of-the-art IoT-based architectures and platforms used in agriculture are also highlighted wherever suitable. Finally, based on this thorough review, we identify current and future trends of IoT in agriculture and highlight potential research challenges.

Review: A survey on routing techniques in underwater wireless sensor networks

Abstract: Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks (UWSNs) are finding different applications for offshore exploration and ocean monitoring. In most of these applications, the network consists of significant number of sensor nodes deployed at different depths throughout the area of interest. The sensor nodes located at the sea bed cannot communicate directly with the nodes near the surface level; they require multi-hop communication assisted by appropriate routing scheme. However, this appropriateness depends not only on network resources and application requirements but also on environmental constraints. All these factors provide a platform where a resource-aware routing strategy plays a vital role to fulfill the different application requirements with dynamic environmental conditions. Realizing the fact, significant attention has been given to construct a reliable scheme, and many routing protocols have been proposed in order to provide an efficient route discovery between the sources and the sink. In this paper, we present a review and comparison of different algorithms, proposed recently in order to fulfill this requirement. The main purpose of this study is to address the issues like data forwarding, deployment and localization in UWSNs under different conditions. Later on, all of these are classified into different groups according to their characteristics and functionalities.

Hop-by-Hop Dynamic Addressing Based (H2-DAB) Routing Protocol for Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract: Providing an efficient communication for the underwater wireless sensor networks is a significant problem due to the unique characteristics of such environments. Radio signal cannot propagate well in deep water, and we have to replace this with the acoustic channel. This replacement results in many issues like high latency due to less propagation speeds, low bandwidths and high error probability. In addition, new features like node mobility with water currents and 3-dimensional space brings additional challenges to the underwater sensor network (UWSN) protocol design. Many routing protocols have been proposed for such environments but most of them considered that the complete dimensional location of all the sensor nodes is already known through a localization process, which itself is a challenging task in UWSNs. In this paper, we propose a novel routing protocol, called Hop-by-Hop Dynamic Addressing Based (H2-DAB), in order to provide scalable and time efficient routing. Our routing protocol will take advantage of the multiple-sink architecture of the underwater wireless sensor networks. The novelty of H2-DAB is that, it does not require any dimensional location information, or any extra specialized hardware compared to many other routing protocols in the same area. Our results show that H2-DAB effectively achieves the goals of higher data deliveries with optimal delays and energy consumptions.

Wireless Sensor’s Civil Applications, Prototypes, and Future Integration Possibilities: A Review

Abstract: Advances in wireless communication are forging new possibilities for sensors. New sensors are equipping major systems around us with unparalleled intelligence as in the case of smart grids, smart homes, and driverless vehicles. Considering the current developments in the field of sensor networks, one feels that it has reached an interesting stage, where the role of the sensors becoming crucial in numerous applications. This all speaks volumes of the fact that sensors are going to be at the front and center of most of future technologies, needless to say the Internet of Things. Considering their vital role from futuristic perspective this survey reports variety of sensors along with their characteristics and applications, which impact human life and well-being. In addition, this survey considers recent prototypes, leading sensor manufacturers as well as major projects that have made use of sensors since the last decade. Moreover, significance of this effort is that integration possibilities of sensors with other networks and major technologies are discussed, while possible challenges and key benefits are highlighted. This research effort focuses the latest developments in the area of sensors and sensor networks as research gears up to meet the challenges of the emerging technologies and their applications particularly those that emphasize smart sensors.

An efficient Dynamic Addressing based routing protocol for Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract: Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks (UWSNs) are different in many aspects as compared to terrestrial sensor networks Other than long propagation delays and high error probability, continuous node movement makes it hard to manage the location information of sensor nodes Determining the location of every node is a major issue as nodes can move continuously with the water currents In order to handle the problem of large propagation delays and unreliable link quality, many algorithms have been proposed and some of them provide good solutions for these issues, but continuous node movements still need attention In order to handle the problem of node mobility, we proposed a Hop-by-Hop Dynamic Addressing Based (H2-DAB) routing protocol, where every node in the network will be assigned a routable address in a quick and efficient way without requiring an explicit configuration or any dimensional location information It helps to provide an option where nodes can communicate without any centralized infrastructure, also a mechanism is available where nodes can come and leave the network without having any serious effect on the rest of the network Simulation results show that H2-DAB can manage easily during the quick routing changes where node movements are very frequent yet require little or no overhead in order to complete its tasks

The Internet of Things vision: Key features, applications and open issues

Abstract: The Internet of Things (IoT) is a new paradigm that combines aspects and technologies coming from different approaches. Ubiquitous computing, pervasive computing, Internet Protocol, sensing technologies, communication technologies, and embedded devices are merged together in order to form a system where the real and digital worlds meet and are continuously in symbiotic interaction. The smart object is the building block of the IoT vision. By putting intelligence into everyday objects, they are turned into smart objects able not only to collect information from the environment and interact/control the physical world, but also to be interconnected, to each other, through Internet to exchange data and information. The expected huge number of interconnected devices and the significant amount of available data open new opportunities to create services that will bring tangible benefits to the society, environment, economy and individual citizens. In this paper we present the key features and the driver technologies of IoT. In addition to identifying the application scenarios and the correspondent potential applications, we focus on research challenges and open issues to be faced for the IoT realization in the real world.

Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA) for cellular future radio access

Abstract: Radio access technologies for cellular mobile communications are typically characterized by multiple access schemes, e.g., frequency division multiple access (FDMA), time division multiple access (TDMA), code division multiple access (CDMA), and OFDMA. In the 4th generation (4G) mobile communication systems such as Long-Term Evolution (LTE) (Au et al., Uplink contention based SCMA for 5G radio access. Globecom Workshops (GC Wkshps), 2014. doi:10.1109/GLOCOMW.2014.7063547) and LTE-Advanced (Baracca et al., IEEE Trans. Commun., 2011. doi:10.1109/TCOMM.2011.121410.090252; Barry et al., Digital Communication, Kluwer, Dordrecht, 2004), standardized by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), orthogonal multiple access based on OFDMA or single carrier (SC)-FDMA is adopted. Orthogonal multiple access was a reasonable choice for achieving good system-level throughput performance with simple single-user detection. However, considering the trend in 5G, achieving significant gains in capacity and system throughput performance is a high priority requirement in view of the recent exponential increase in the volume of mobile traffic. In addition the proposed system should be able to support enhanced delay-sensitive high-volume services such as video streaming and cloud computing. Another high-level target of 5G is reduced cost, higher energy efficiency and robustness against emergencies.

Internet-of-Things (IoT)-Based Smart Agriculture: Toward Making the Fields Talk

Abstract: Despite the perception people may have regarding the agricultural process, the reality is that today's agriculture industry is data-centered, precise, and smarter than ever. The rapid emergence of the Internet-of-Things (IoT) based technologies redesigned almost every industry including “smart agriculture” which moved the industry from statistical to quantitative approaches. Such revolutionary changes are shaking the existing agriculture methods and creating new opportunities along a range of challenges. This article highlights the potential of wireless sensors and IoT in agriculture, as well as the challenges expected to be faced when integrating this technology with the traditional farming practices. IoT devices and communication techniques associated with wireless sensors encountered in agriculture applications are analyzed in detail. What sensors are available for specific agriculture application, like soil preparation, crop status, irrigation, insect and pest detection are listed. How this technology helping the growers throughout the crop stages, from sowing until harvesting, packing and transportation is explained. Furthermore, the use of unmanned aerial vehicles for crop surveillance and other favorable applications such as optimizing crop yield is considered in this article. State-of-the-art IoT-based architectures and platforms used in agriculture are also highlighted wherever suitable. Finally, based on this thorough review, we identify current and future trends of IoT in agriculture and highlight potential research challenges.

Review: A survey on routing techniques in underwater wireless sensor networks

Abstract: Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks (UWSNs) are finding different applications for offshore exploration and ocean monitoring. In most of these applications, the network consists of significant number of sensor nodes deployed at different depths throughout the area of interest. The sensor nodes located at the sea bed cannot communicate directly with the nodes near the surface level; they require multi-hop communication assisted by appropriate routing scheme. However, this appropriateness depends not only on network resources and application requirements but also on environmental constraints. All these factors provide a platform where a resource-aware routing strategy plays a vital role to fulfill the different application requirements with dynamic environmental conditions. Realizing the fact, significant attention has been given to construct a reliable scheme, and many routing protocols have been proposed in order to provide an efficient route discovery between the sources and the sink. In this paper, we present a review and comparison of different algorithms, proposed recently in order to fulfill this requirement. The main purpose of this study is to address the issues like data forwarding, deployment and localization in UWSNs under different conditions. Later on, all of these are classified into different groups according to their characteristics and functionalities.

Development of Smart Healthcare Monitoring System in IoT Environment.

Abstract: Healthcare monitoring system in hospitals and many other health centers has experienced significant growth, and portable healthcare monitoring systems with emerging technologies are becoming of great concern to many countries worldwide nowadays. The advent of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies facilitates the progress of healthcare from face-to-face consulting to telemedicine. This paper proposes a smart healthcare system in IoT environment that can monitor a patient’s basic health signs as well as the room condition where the patients are now in real-time. In this system, five sensors are used to capture the data from hospital environment named heart beat sensor, body temperature sensor, room temperature sensor, CO sensor, and CO2 sensor. The error percentage of the developed scheme is within a certain limit (< 5%) for each case. The condition of the patients is conveyed via a portal to medical staff, where they can process and analyze the current situation of the patients. The developed prototype is well suited for healthcare monitoring that is proved by the effectiveness of the system.