Nowadays, optical fiber sensors are paramount in a variety of applications in modern society, and for this reason they have attracted the attention of academic as well as industry researchers.  The involved photonic devices exploit all those phenomena (nano-plasmonics, meta-surfaces, photonic crystals assisted surface waves, surface enhanced Raman scattering) providing sub-wavelength light confinement, and light matter interaction enhancements at nanoscale.

Several low-cost, highly sensitive, simple-to-realize and to-use IoT Point-Of-Care Tests (IoT POCT) will be presented in this kind of special session. For instance, highly sensitive biosensor configurations are developed by using innovative platforms connected to the Internet that efficiently excite the plasmonic phenomena (surface plasmon resonance (SPR) or Localized SPR) in gold nanofilms, continuous or nanostructured, via energy-efficient systems. 

The session delves into methods and techniques for developing Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) systems. SHM of civil buildings and infrastructure represents an emerging and dynamic application that involves sensing, networking, data management, and analytics components, combined with domain knowledge. 

The role of digital telecommunication technologies has dramatically evolved over the last few decades, becoming more and more pervasive in everyone’s life. Following this consolidated trend, it is expected an even more increase in human exposure due to multiple electromagnetic fields (EMFs) generated by such technologies. 

TSN is a family of standards developed to introduce determinism in Ethernet networks. Notably, it may be adopted by wireless networks, such as WiFi and 5G, as well. As such, it represents an enabling technology for communication systems in the context of Industry 4.0/5.0 where TSN allows time critical communication, and ensures reliability, flexibility, and scalability.

“Accelerate the digital transformation of our public services” and “Decrease our energy consumption” are two of the more challenging targets of the UE Member States; in line with that position a  recent paper entitled ‘Digital Europe - How to spend it: a digital investment plan for Europe report’ , points out that digital technologies have the potential to reduce by 20% the global CO2 emissions by 2030, especially in sectors such as energy, transportations, construction, agriculture and manufacturing.

The design of hybrid and electric vehicles poses serious challenges to assure the electromagnetic compatibility of on-board apparatus and communications systems adopted for intra-vehicle and V2X links. As an example, in this context, the onboard electronic devices for powertrain control, battery recharging, and communications are forced to operate in harsh environments due to a crowded spectrum and also because high-order harmonics due to the power electronics have magnitude often comparable with the communication signals intensity. 

Achieving and maintaining precise measurements is paramount for ensuring the reliability and accuracy of data acquired by distributed wireless sensors networks. As such, anomaly detection has a pivotal role in identifying and mitigating unexpected deviations from normal sensor behaviour. The significance of anomaly detection lies in its ability to discern subtle irregularities that may compromise the accuracy of measurements, allowing for timely corrective actions to be taken.