Internet of Everything

Abstract

In this chapter, the authors put forward the notion of internet of everything (IoE) as an effort to maximally connect our communication infrastructure to the universe, which can itself be regarded as the real IoE, an interconnected network of physical phenomena (i.e., Everything we perceive as independent wholes that persist through time, such as molecules, light, waves, living organisms, and celestial objects, with the purpose of gaining better understanding of its mechanisms and manipulating them to enable novel technologies via a networked sensing, analysis, and actuation approach). The strategy to outline the IoE effort is by dissecting the vast IoE landscape into IoXs according to their various application domains (Xs), for each of which the authors give an up-to-date account of the state-of-the-art in related fields and point out the challenges in contemporary research faces. They also discuss a wide spectrum of challenges and future research directions (e.g., ubiquitous connectivity, security, big data, etc., which are common to many IoXs and penetrate into the IoE effort in general).