Massive Machine-Type Communications

The articles in this special section address the techology and applications supported by machine-type communications (MTC). Here, MTC is characterized by fully automatic data generation, exchange, processing, and actuation among intelligent machines, without or with low intervention of humans. With the rapid penetration of embedded devices, MTC is becoming the dominant communication paradigm for a wide range of emerging smart services including healthcare, manufacturing, utilities, consumer goods, and transportation. Industry analysts predict that 50 billion devices will be connected to mobile networks worldwide by 2020. While mobile phone devices communicating among humans will still exist, machine-type devices sending bits of information to other machines, servers, clouds, or humans will account for a much larger proportion and thus create what is referred to as massive MTC (MMTC).