PPNA special issue on "the green, reliability and security of machine-to-machine communications"

Machine-to-machine communications is an emerging technology that realizes a system of networks, wireless or wired, possibly distributed across the world, for transmitting events captured by low-end machines such as sensors and smart meters to high-end applications and/or personal appliances, where the events are translated into meaningful information. It embraces several major research fields including wireless sensor networks, vehicular networks, smart grid and RFID, and enables future ubiquitous computing environment. Unlike current world-scale human-centric 3G wireless networks, M2M communication network is characterized by the absence of direct human intervention and the rapid increase in size and is therefore imposed with unique requirements.