Wireless Machine-to-Machine Communication Networks

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With the rapid penetration of Internet into people's daily life, ubiquitous connectivity is finally dawning with the introduction of machine-to-machine (M2M) communications where thousands of embedded devices are connected wirelessly and function in a cooperative and autonomous manner. When a massive number of devices are networked, they provide significant amounts of status information of the physical world in which they are embedded and further build intelligence into a broad range of infrastructures. Applications such as smart grid, smart home, intelligent transportation, e-health, industrial automation, tracking and logistics, will be enabled by machine-to-machine communication networks. M2M research incubates new services and applications that open a mass market and business opportunities, whilst transforming the way communication systems are defined and operate. All major telecommunications and networking companies are actively involved in M2M research, product development and standardization. Despite of the promising picture projected by M2M, mass market adoption is conditional on the fact that critical challenges of M2M networks are resolved. Energy efficiency and security are the two most compelling issues to address. From environmental perspectives, the energy savings brought by the M2M network need outweigh the energy consumed by the vast number of wireless devices to justify their usage. Green communications is essential to the deployment of M2M. Moreover, proper operation of any network needs security and the ubiquitous M2M network poses significant challenges on security.