Guest Editorial From Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks to Industrial Internet of Things

The papers in this special section examine the deploying of industrial wireless sensor networks as it applies to the industrial Internet of Things. Industrial networks connect sensors and actuators in various industrial facilities, such as oil and gas production facilities, paper plants, car manufactories, and underground mines. Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is a paradigm that involves a network of physical objects containing embedded technologies to collect, communicate, sense, and interact with their internal states or the external environment through wireless or wired connections brilliant machines, advanced analytics, and people at work and deliver valuable new insights like never before. These insights can then help drive smarter, faster business decisions for industrial companies. Since the Internet is designed for best effort services, there is a fundamental challenge to design and support applications in the industrial automation domain that demands real-time performance at different levels.