Many reports estimated that in 2024, the number of Internet of Things (IoT) devices exceeded 18 billion worldwide, with predictions suggesting that it could reach nearly 40 billion by 2033. Despite primarily being consumer devices, a growing number of them will find use in industrial and enterprise applications. This shows the significance of IoT and how it shapes the future. However, to realize its full potential, we must address its emerging challenges and highlight recent applications, advances, and trends, which is the focus of this book.

Security and privacy represent some of the key challenges IoT adopters face. The severity of these issues is exacerbated by the growing number of IoT devices, the expansion of Industry 4.0 (and the emergence of Industry 5.0), and the significant increase in cybersecurity attacks. Considering that ensuring security and privacy is crucial for the successful adoption of IoT, this book dedicates several chapters to these areas. This book also introduces some novel models that improve IoT environments and presents several practical implementations that utilize IoT to demonstrate some of its real‑world applications. Furthermore, it examines several emerging technologies that enable the realization of advanced IoT environments. We see most IoT advances in three main areas: the integration of artificial intelligence/machine learning, network technologies, and hardware design. Therefore, this book dedicates several chapters to these areas. Most chapters touch on artificial intelligence/machine learning, emphasizing the significance of these technologies in today’s and next‑generation applications.

The main objective of this book is to capture the state of the art in IoT and explore some of its emerging challenges, solutions, and technologies. This peer‑reviewed book serves as a reference for researchers, academics, practitioners, and graduate‑level students.