TY - JOUR
T1 - Harnessing the Power of Smart and Connected Health to Tackle COVID-19
T2 - IoT, AI, Robotics, and Blockchain for a Better World
AU - Firouzi, Farshad
AU - Farahani, Bahar
AU - Daneshmand, Mahmoud
AU - Grise, Kathy
AU - Song, Jaeseung
AU - Saracco, Roberto
AU - Wang, Lucy Lu
AU - Lo, Kyle
AU - Angelov, Plamen
AU - Soares, Eduardo
AU - Loh, Po Shen
AU - Talebpour, Zeynab
AU - Moradi, Reza
AU - Goodarzi, Mohsen
AU - Ashraf, Haleh
AU - Talebpour, Mohammad
AU - Talebpour, Alireza
AU - Romeo, Luca
AU - Das, Rupam
AU - Heidari, Hadi
AU - Pasquale, Dana
AU - Moody, James
AU - Woods, Chris
AU - Huang, Erich S.
AU - Barnaghi, Payam
AU - Sarrafzadeh, Majid
AU - Li, Ron
AU - Beck, Kristen L.
AU - Isayev, Olexandr
AU - Sung, Nakmyoung
AU - Luo, Alan
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 IEEE.
PY - 2021/8/15
Y1 - 2021/8/15
N2 - 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 article 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: 1) tracking and tracing; 2) remote patient monitoring (RPM) by wearable IoT (WIoT); 3) personal digital twins (PDTs); and 4) real-life use case: ICT/IoT solution in South Korea. Second, the role and novel applications of AI are explained, namely: 1) diagnosis and prognosis; 2) risk prediction; 3) vaccine and drug development; 4) research data set; 5) early warnings and alerts; 6) social control and fake news detection; and 7) communication and chatbot. Third, the main uses of robotics and drone technology are analyzed, including: 1) crowd surveillance; 2) public announcements; 3) screening and diagnosis; and 4) 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.
AB - 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 article 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: 1) tracking and tracing; 2) remote patient monitoring (RPM) by wearable IoT (WIoT); 3) personal digital twins (PDTs); and 4) real-life use case: ICT/IoT solution in South Korea. Second, the role and novel applications of AI are explained, namely: 1) diagnosis and prognosis; 2) risk prediction; 3) vaccine and drug development; 4) research data set; 5) early warnings and alerts; 6) social control and fake news detection; and 7) communication and chatbot. Third, the main uses of robotics and drone technology are analyzed, including: 1) crowd surveillance; 2) public announcements; 3) screening and diagnosis; and 4) 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.
KW - Artificial intelligence (AI)
KW - COVID-19
KW - Internet of Things (IoT)
KW - big data
KW - blockchain
KW - digital twin
KW - eHealth
KW - healthcare
KW - pandemic
KW - robotics
KW - wearable
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85104588125&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85104588125&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/JIOT.2021.3073904
DO - 10.1109/JIOT.2021.3073904
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85104588125
VL - 8
SP - 12826
EP - 12846
JO - IEEE Internet of Things Journal
JF - IEEE Internet of Things Journal
IS - 16
M1 - 9406879
ER -
