As special issue is organised by ASSIST-IoT project in MDPI Journal of Sensor and Actuator Networks (JSAN) entitled “Recent Advances and Tactile Internet of Things” (ISSN 2224-2708).  Call for papers deadline: 28 February 2022. More info available at: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/jsan/special_issues/TIoT

IoT technologies and applications are bringing fundamental changes to all sectors of society and economy and constitute an essential element of the Next-Generation Internet, which encompasses a number of enabling technologies, such as 5G, cybersecurity, distributed computing, artificial intelligence (AI), and virtual, augmented, and mixed reality. Recently, the term Internet of Senses has been coined, as one of the main drivers for the sixth generation (6G) of wireless communications systems, leveraging the Tactile Internet to a whole new level, ensuring end-user trust, adequate security, and privacy by design, and making it human-centric.

The main topics of interest related to this area and covered by the concept of Tactile IoT are:

• Next-generation IoT architectures with a focus on user-aware, self-aware, and semi-autonomous IoT systems;
• New, real-time capable solutions, which solve performance challenges such as streaming and filtering at the edge, latency, and network constraints;
• New distributed AI, address security, privacy and trust requirements by design, and the possibility of new, decentralized topologies and governance;
• Interoperability mechanisms coping with the increased complexity of connecting vast numbers of heterogeneous devices with escalating demands for data sharing;
• Techniques for privacy protection, data monetization, and contractual arrangements (e.g., blockchains/DLTs) for ensuring secure and trusted interaction;
• Intelligent IoT devices including resource-aware hardware/software concepts, low-power processor platforms integrating computing, networking, storage and acceleration elements;
• New communication schemes and topologies that range from the cloud continuum toward mesh and securing computing and communication at device level with constrained resources;
• Contextual IoT based on human-centric sensing/actuating, augmented/virtual reality, and new IoT service capabilities;
• Integration solutions with parallel and opportunistic computing capabilities, neuromorphic and contextual computing;
• Time-sensitive and ultra-low latency networking such as 5G and beyond (6G) networks, time-sensitive networking (TSN), and different mesh networks with low-latency capabilities.

This Special Issue aims to discuss recent advances in human centricity and Tactile Internet as key enablers for the next-generation Internet of Things (IoT). We are welcoming contributions providing innovative research, as well as technical contributions, providing solutions to interoperability, integration, and interconnection of heterogeneous IoT systems, at any specific level (device, networking, middleware, application services, data, and semantics), and at global platform level that are related to human-centric tactile IoT.