Harnessing the power of smart and connected health to tackle COVID-19: IoT, AI, robotics, and blockchain for a better world

Firouzi, F. et al. (2021) Harnessing the power of smart and connected health to tackle COVID-19: IoT, AI, robotics, and blockchain for a better world. IEEE Internet of Things Journal, 8(16), pp. 12826-12846. (doi: 10.1109/JIOT.2021.3073904)

Abstract

As COVID-19 hounds the world, the common cause of finding a swift solution to manage the pandemic has brought together researchers, institutions, governments, and society at large. The Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI) — including Machine Learning (ML) and Big Data analytics — as well as Robotics and Blockchain, are the four decisive areas of technological innovation that have been ingenuity harnessed to fight this pandemic and future ones. While these highly interrelated smart and connected health technologies cannot resolve the pandemic overnight and may not be the only answer to the crisis, they can provide greater insight into the disease and support frontline efforts to prevent and control the pandemic. This paper provides a blend of discussions on the contribution of these digital technologies, propose several complementary and multidisciplinary techniques to combat COVID-19, offer opportunities for more holistic studies, and accelerate knowledge acquisition and scientific discoveries in pandemic research. First, four areas where IoT can contribute are discussed, namely, i) tracking and tracing, ii) Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) by Wearable IoT (WIoT), iii) Personal Digital Twins (PDT), and iv) real-life use case: ICT/IoT solution in Korea. Second, the role and novel applications of AI are explained, namely: i) diagnosis and prognosis, ii) risk prediction, iii) vaccine and drug development, iv) research dataset, v) early warnings and alerts, vi) social control and fake news detection, and vii) communication and chatbot. Third, the main uses of robotics and drone technology are analyzed, including i) crowd surveillance, ii) public announcements, iii) screening and diagnosis, and iv) essential supply delivery. Finally, we discuss how Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs), of which blockchain is a common example, can be combined with other technologies for tackling COVID-19.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: Prof. Song was supported from the Smart City R and D project of the Korea Agency for Infrastructure Technology Advancement(KAIA) grant funded by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport(MOLIT), Ministry of Science and ICT(MSIT) (Grant 18NSPS-B149388-01). Dr. Romeo was supported from Vision Robotics Artificial Intelligence group, the RISC-19 ICU board (https://www.risc19-icu.net) and Bioengineering Lab Group.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Heidari, Professor Hadi and Das, Dr Rupam
• Authors: Firouzi, F., Farahani, B., Daneshmand, M., Grise, K., Song, J., Saracco, R., Wang, L. L., Lo, K., Angelov, P., Soares, E., Loh, P.-S., Talebpour, A., Romeo, L., Das, R., Heidari, H., Pasquale, D., Moody, J., Woods, C., Huang, E. S., Barnaghi, P., Sarrafzadeh, M., Li, R., Beck, K. L., Isayev, O., Sung, N., and Luo, A.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Electronics and Nanoscale Engineering
• Journal Name: IEEE Internet of Things Journal
• Publisher: IEEE
• ISSN: 2327-4662
• ISSN (Online): 2327-4662
• Published Online: 19 April 2021
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2021 IEEE
• First Published: First published in IEEE Internet of Things Journal 8(16): 12826-12846
• Publisher Policy: Reproduce in accordance with the publisher copyright policy