Elsevier

Computer Networks

Volume 193, 5 July 2021, 108074
Computer Networks

Survey paper
A Survey on Wearable Technology: History, State-of-the-Art and Current Challenges

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comnet.2021.108074Get rights and content
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Abstract

Technology is continually undergoing a constituent development caused by the appearance of billions new interconnected “things” and their entrenchment in our daily lives. One of the underlying versatile technologies, namely wearables, is able to capture rich contextual information produced by such devices and use it to deliver a legitimately personalized experience. The main aim of this paper is to shed light on the history of wearable devices and provide a state-of-the-art review on the wearable market. Moreover, the paper provides an extensive and diverse classification of wearables, based on various factors, a discussion on wireless communication technologies, architectures, data processing aspects, and market status, as well as a variety of other actual information on wearable technology. Finally, the survey highlights the critical challenges and existing/future solutions.

Keywords

Wearables
Communications
Standardization
Privacy
Security
Data processing
Interoperability
User adoption
Localization
Classification
Future perspective

Cited by (0)

Aleksandr Ometov is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Tampere University (TAU), Finland. He is currently working on H2020 MCSA ITN/EJD A-WEAR project. He received D.Sc. (Tech) in Telecommunications and M.Sc. is Information Technology from Tampere University of Technology (TUT), Finland in 2018 and 2016, correspondingly. He also holds his Specialist degree in Information Security from Saint Petersburg State University of Aerospace Instrumentation (SUAI), Russia, 2013. His research interests are wireless communications, information security, blockchain technology and wearable applications.

Viktoriia Shubina is a Doctoral student at Tampere University (TAU), and an Early Stage Researcher at H2020 MCSA ITN/EJD A-WEAR project. She received her Double M.Sc. in Engineering from the University of Applied Sciences Technikum Wien, Austria, and M.Sc. in Business Informatics from National Research University Higher School of Economics, Russia in 2019. Topics, which interest her most are location privacy, privacy-preserving mechanisms, indoor positioning, and wearable technologies.

Lucie Klus is the Early Stage Researcher at Tampere University, Finland and Jaume I University, Spain as a part of H2020 MCSA ITN/EJD A-WEAR project since September 2019. She received her M.Sc. and B.Sc. degrees from Electronics and Communications at Brno University of Technology in 2019 and 2017. Her research interests include modern approaches in wireless communications, data processing and analytics, crowdsourcing methods and machine learning techniques.

Justyna Skibińska is the Early Stage Researcher and Ph.D. student at Brno University of Technology, Czech Republic and Tampere University, Finland as a part of H2020 MCSA ITN/EJD A-WEAR project. She obtained her M.Sc. and B.Sc. degrees from Biomedical Engineering with specialization in Computer Science and Electronics in Medicine at University of Science and Technology in Kraków, Poland in 2018 and 2017 respectively. Her research focus is on machine learning techniques and wearable technologies.

Salwa Saafi is a joint Ph.D. student at the Department of Telecommunications at Brno University of Technology, Czech Republic and the Unit of Electrical Engineering at Tampere University, Finland. She received her engineering degree (2017) in telecommunications from the Higher School of Communication of Tunis, Tunisia. Her research interests include cellular radio access technologies, future wireless architectures, and wearable applications.

Pavel Pascacio is currently an Early Stage Researcher of the H2020 MCSA ITN/EJD A-WEAR project at the Universitat Jaume I (Spain) and Tampere University (Finland) respectively. He received his M.Sc. in Automation and Control Engineering from Politecnico di Milano, Italy, in 2019 and a B.Sc. in Electronics Engineering from Instituto Tecnológico de Tuxtla Gutiérrez, México, in 2009. His main research interests are in the areas of infrastructure-less indoor location & positioning, machine learning, collaborative indoor positioning systems, peer-to-peer communication and mesh networks.

Laura Flueratoru is currently pursuing her joint Ph.D. degree at University Politehnica of Bucharest and Tampere University as part of the H2020 MSCA ITN/EJD A-WEAR project. She received her M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from ETH Zürich in 2019 and, prior to this, her B.Eng. degree (with highest honors) in Electronics and Telecommunications from University Politehnica of Bucharest in 2017. Her main research interests are in wireless communications, localization systems, ultra-wideband communications, and embedded systems.

Darwin Quezada Gaibor is an Early Stage Researcher and Ph.D. student at Universitat Jaume I (Spain) and Tampere University (Finland). He received his bachelor’s degree in Mechatronic Engineering from Universidad Tecnológica América, Ecuador, 2013 and his Master’s Degree in Radioengineering – GNSS receivers: Hardware and Software from Samara National Research University, Russia, 2017. His main interests are VoIP, Cloud Computing, Networking, Servers, and open-source software.

Nadezhda Chukhno is an Early Stage Researcher at A-WEAR and Doctoral Researcher at Mediterranea University of Reggio Calabria, Italy and Jaume I University, Spain. She graduated from RUDN University, Russia, and received her B.Sc. in Business Informatics (2017) and M.Sc. in Fundamental Informatics and Information technologies (2019). Her current research activity mainly focuses on wireless communications, 5G networks, D2D, and wearable technologies.

Olga Chukhno is an Early Stage Researcher within H2020 MCSA ITN/EJD A-WEAR project and a Ph.D. student at Mediterranea University of Reggio Calabria, Italy and Tampere University, Finland. She received M.Sc. (2019) in Fundamental Informatics and Information Technologies and B.Sc. (2017) in Business Informatics from RUDN University, Russia. Her current research interests include wireless communications, social networking, edge computing, and wearable applications.

Asad Ali is an Early Stage Researcher in the H2020 MCSA ITN/EJD A-WEAR project and a Doctoral Researcher at Tampere University, Finland, and Brno University of Technology, Czech Republic. He pursued his B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering with majors in Telecommunication from COMSATS University Islamabad, Pakistan (2015), and M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Rostock, Germany (2019). His research interests include, but are not limited to, mmWave communication, wearable technology, and 5G network.

Asma Channa is an Early Stage Researcher in the H2020 MCSA ITN/EJD A-WEAR project and a Doctoral Researcher at University Politehnica of Bucharest, and Mediterranea University of Reggio Calabria, Italy. In 2015, she graduated from Mehran University of Engineering and Technology Jamshoro, Pakistan with B.Sc. degree in Electronic Engineering. She holds her M.Sc. degree in Electronic Systems Engineering from the same university (2018). Her research interests include, biomedical signal processing, wearables, eHealth and artificial intelligence.

Ekaterina Svertoka is a Ph.D. candidate at Politehnica University of Bucharest, Romania as part of H2020 ITN/EJD A-WEAR project. She received her M.Sc. in Radioengineering from Saint Petersburg Electrotechnical University (LETI), Russia in 2018. Her research interests are wireless communications and wearable technology for work safety.

Waleed Bin Qaim is an Early Stage Researcher (ESR) in the H2020 MSCA ITN/EJD A-WEAR project. He is a double degree Ph.D. student affiliated with Tampere University (TAU), Finland and University Mediterranea of Reggio Calabria (UNIRC), Italy. He received his M.Sc. in Computer Science and Engineering from Koc University, Turkey in 2018. He completed his B.Sc. in Telecommunication Engineering from the National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences (NUCES), Pakistan in 2011. His research interests include Wireless Communication, IoT, Wearable Networks, and Distributed Computing Systems.

Raúl Casanova-Marqués is a joint-Ph.D. student at Brno University of Technology (BUT) and Universitat Jaume I (UJI), working as an Early Stage Researcher (ESR) within the A-WEAR project. He graduated (2017) in Computer Engineering at Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV) in Spain and he received a M.Sc. (2018) in Information and Communication Technology Security from Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), and a M.Sc. (2018) Indra Master’s in Cybersecurity from U-tad. He is currently involved as a researcher in several scientific projects focused on novel cryptographic protocols for attribute-based authentication, privacy protection mechanisms of users in electronic systems and secure algorithms on wearable devices.

Sylvia Holcer is currently an Early Stage Researcher and a Ph.D. student at Universitat Jaume I (UJI) in Castellón, Spain with a secondment at Brno University of Technology (BUT) in Brno, Czech Republic. She is focusing her work on location privacy in wearables. She majored in Geoinformation for her M.Sc. and B.Sc. at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland. Her primary research interests are new technologies, machine learning, and spatial analysis.

Joaquín Torres-Sospedra is CEO at UBIK Geospatial Solutions. He has a Ph.D. since 2011 about Ensembles of Neural Networks and Machine Learning from Universitat Jaume I. He has authored more than 120 articles in journals and conference proceedings. His current research interests include indoor positioning solutions based on Wi-Fi & BLE, Machine Learning and Evaluation. Dr. Torres-Sospedra is the chair of the Smartphone-based track of IPIN Competition since 2015. He is also the chair of the IPIN International Standards Committee since 2018.

Sven Casteleyn received his master and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium. He is currently an associate professor at the Universidad Jaime I, Castelln, Spain, and previously held a Ramon y Cajal (Spain) and a Marie Curie (Europe) individual post-doctoral fellowship. Sven supervised 6 Ph.D. and over 50 master theses. He published over 100 scientific articles in the broad fields of the Web, mobile computing, geographical information science and technology, and their application fields.

Giuseppe Ruggeri received the master degree in electronics engineering in 1998. In 2002 he received the Ph.D. in electronics, computer science and telecommunications engineering. He is currently assistant professor at the University Mediterranea of Reggio Calabria. His current interests include self organizing networks, Internet of Things, Social Internet of Things.

Giuseppe Araniti (Senior Member, IEEE) received the Laurea degree and the Ph.D. degree in electronic engineering from the University Mediterranea of Reggio Calabria, Italy, in 2000 and 2004, respectively. He is currently an Assistant Professor of telecommunications with the University Mediterranea of Reggio Calabria. His major area of research is on 5G/6G networks and it includes personal communications, enhanced wireless and satellite systems, traffic and radio resource management, multicast and broadcast services, device-to-device (D2D), and machine-type communications (M2M/MTC).

Radim Burget is an Assoc. Professor at Brno University of Technology and is heading Signal processing program at SIX Research Centre. He has been involved in research of artificial intelligence for many years and in plenty of research projects which include projects funded on European level, national level or privately funded projects. Companies he is cooperating with include Honeywell, Mitsubishi Electric, Rapidminer, Konica-Minolta and others.

Jiri Hosek (Senior Member, IEEE) received the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Communication, Brno University of Technology (BUT), Czech Republic, in 2007 and 2011, respectively. He is currently an Associate Professor and the Deputy Vice-Head for Research and Development and International Relations at the Department of Telecommunications, BUT. He is also coordinating the WISLAB Research Group, where he deals mostly with industry-oriented projects in the area of future mobile networks, the Internet of Things, and home automation services. He has (co)authored more than 130 research works on networking technologies, wireless communications, quality of service, quality of experience, and IoT applications.

Elena Simona Lohan is a Professor at Tampere University (TAU), Finland. She received an M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from Polytechnics University of Bucharest, Romania, in 1997, a DEA degree (French equivalent of master) in econometrics at Ecole Polytechnique, Paris, France, in 1998, and a Ph.D. degree in telecommunications from Tampere University of Technology in 2003. She is now a professor at the Electrical Engineering unit at Tampere University, Finland and the coordinator of the MSCA EU A-WEAR network. Her current research interests include wireless location techniques, wearable computing, and privacy-aware positioning solutions.