Call for Papers

Industry 4.0 has already started. Computerization and connectivity are permeating all sectors. Digitalization of industries, enabled by IoT technologies, the monitoring and control of all tools of production, collecting data from thousands of sensors to create a digital twin of the product being realized or the operation being achieved, to increase productivity of manufacturing, logistics and many other industrial contexts. Machine intelligence will detect and understand what is happening in an industrial plant, predict events and, eventually, react to prevent problems or enable an intervention thereto.

To realize all the above, wireless connectivity, cloud and machine intelligence will integrate more and more with physical systems and processes to achieve cyber-physical systems (CPS). CPSs are based on the integration of computation, networking and physical processes. They combine several systems of different nature with the main purpose of controlling a physical process. Through feedback mechanisms they adapt themselves to new conditions in real time. CPSs will be present in most industry sectors and, will follow the Industry 4.0 paradigm. Production environments will be self-configuring, self-adjusting, and self-optimizing, leading to greater agility. Research is addressing different aspects of CPSs, such as the way to orchestrate dynamic interactions among the different sub-systems, the design tools needed to properly design those sub-systems taking into account their nature, their interfaces and their abstractions.

Regarding the underlying industrial communication networks, the challenges at hand are the performance indicators like latency, jitter, reliability, security and throughput. They largely impact the dynamic interactions between CPS sub-systems. In addition, factors like device locations, propagation conditions, and traffic load are changing over time. The real-time capabilities required by CPSs in different Industry 4.0 applications, pose relevant challenges at the network level, such as a low and predictable latency. In addition, the application requirements might change over time and the network should be able to cope with that by promptly provisioning the required services which are managing all involved resources, including the network management and control system and eventual edge and cloud resources. A significant role in the network will be played by Cybersecurity and a key role will be played by AI. Ubiquitous connectivity will represent the nervous system of future Industries and the enabler of Industry 4.0 applications. Topics of interest in the Feature Topic (FT) include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Networks enabling smart manufacturing and logistics: 4G, 5G and future 6G
• Industrial Wi-Fi and other network architectures for latency-critical manufacturing and logistics
• Wireless networks for cloud robotics
• Edge cloud architecture for enabling real-time Industry 4.0 applications
• Smart control systems for the connected factory of the future
• E2E setup, control and management for enabling real time operating cyber-physical systems
• Dedicated network (i.e. private network vs public slice-based networks)
• AI-driven connectivity for Industry 4.0
• Intelligence for the connected Industry to enable real-time CPS applications

Submission Guidelines

Manuscripts should conform to the standard format as indicated in the Information for Authors section of the Manuscript Submission Guidelines. Please, check these guidelines carefully before submitting since submissions not complying with them will be administratively rejected without review.

All manuscripts to be considered for publication must be submitted by the deadline through Manuscript Central. Select the “July 2021/Industry4.0” topic from the drop-down menu of Topic/Series titles. Please observe the dates specified here below noting that there will be no extension of submission deadline.

Important Dates

Manuscript Submission Deadline: 11 January 2021, 4:00 pm US Eastern time
Decision Notification: 1 April 2021
Final Manuscript Due: 15 May 2021
Publication Date: July 2021

Guest Editors

Roberto Sabella
Ericsson, Italy

Sanyogita Shansunder
Verizon, USA

Sandor Albrecht
RISE, Computer Science and “Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation,” Sweden

Daniel Bovensiepen
Siemens, China