In the framework of the e-health applications several new and challenging solutions will be developed thanks to the Internet of Things (IoT). The wearables devices and their networking can represent a data mine to be fed to new analytics and Big Data solutions to transform this huge amount of data into valuable information, in retail, in fitness, in wellness, in the Industry 4.0 and in precision medicine or in Smart Health in general.
In this project, we aim at exploiting the excellent opportunity to use the future 5G networks combined with the IoT to improve healthcare solutions. Ideally, future smart health solutions should provide services with near-zero latency, advanced quality-of-service capabilities, and data rates in the order of Gbps and massive type communications. We will set the relevant architectural model, study and define algorithms and protocols that can efficiently improve the system behavior as for the support of specific use cases that will be identified in the project itself (e.g. from fisiological measurments taken by IoT medical devices to videos streamed from some medical equipments to the cloud). We then will analyze, with new simulation tools, the performance of the provided solutions and pave the way towards an extensive use of IoT and 5G in the medical field.
The research will be innovative under different perspectives.
1. New architectural models for the hardware and software platform for the service provision in the Smart Health applications will be provided.
2. How to exploit the 5G protocols and wireless communications for Internet of Medical Things will be studied and enhancements to providing the connectivity, the data transport service and the applications in the IoT thought 5G will be provided.
3. New algorithms adopting signal processing technologies in IoT, including but not limited to data gathering by compressive sampling, network structure analysis, and Artificial Intelligence will be provided.
4. Enhancement of TCP control mechanisms to cope with 5G IoT, with specific reference to requirements posed by eHealth applications.
5. Development of models to assess TCP adaptation to the IoT for eHealth scenario.
6. A simulation framework to test both the algorithm and the protocols will be designed and this, in the framework of the medical IoT is quite new, especially if combined with the 5G infrastructure.
Design requirements that will be fulfilled are:
- Availability: Having high availability of the e-Health services and technologies
- Data/Service Reliability Assurances of good reliability for the provided services
- Data Management Easy access to the data
- Scalability A huge amount of IoT may need to interconnect and send their data
- Flexibility The system should be flexible and easy to be used both by patients and by medical operators
- Interoparability Services and protocols for the e-Health can be provided by multiple technologies. These should be interoperable.
- Security Data privacy and security are fundamental as for medical applications