Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy

Call for Papers

Special Issue on Mobile Communication and Sensing in Cyber-physical Systems for Smart Home Automation

The convergence of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) with mobile communication and sensing technologies has been converting home places from traditional environments to intelligent, responsive, and informatised living places. Home automation significantly impacts daily life, enabling control of home appliances from anywhere in the world, remotely monitoring household functions. This evolution is one that offers great convenience and opens the door toward a better-quality life for the elderly and the differently-abled.

Sensors are the critical components of a smart home automation system, acquiring information in real time for functions such as lighting, temperature control, gas detection, and humidity measurements. Mobile communications further establish connectivity between smart devices, based on network technologies and algorithmic controls for monitoring and managing the physical environment. Security remains a major concern for a smart home. The more these systems become mutually cooperating, the more they become susceptible to cyber-attacks. Smart homes may be hacked without a physical break-in. Hence, to mitigate those risks, cyber security programs need to be employed, such as Intrusion Detection Systems (IDSs), Fault-Tolerant Control (FTC), and secure firewalls. These systems establish real-time threat detection, fault-tolerant operations, and protect user privacy.

Data-driven approaches have increasingly been adopted into smart home security, working on the basis of large datasets and artificial intelligence for making predictions and for anomaly detection. Such AI-based models do not remain static with fixed rules but evolve slowly to adapt themselves to emerging threats. This makes for a dynamic and resilient security paradigm. Further, the addition of wireless sensor networks to CPSs creates a system that is highly responsive and interactive to the user. These advanced systems include techniques such as real-time monitoring, self-healing, and pre-emptive fault diagnostics. Still, challenges are found in offering reliability due to hardware failures, network delays, and erroneous data.

This call for papers invites system engineers, IoT developers, data scientists, cybersecurity experts and industry practitioners to submit original research papers and review articles. The papers should consider how mobile communications and sensing technologies can aid in automation, energy management, security, experience, and intelligence in a smart home. This special issue will include current challenges in smart home systems, as well as innovative solutions to these challenges.

The topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

AI-powered cyber-physical equipment for secure and adaptive smart home automation
Mobile communication and real-time sensing in smart home environments
Fault-tolerant and data-driven security approaches for CPS-based smart homes
IoT-enabled wireless networks of sensors for home control and user-centred design
Improving smart-home intelligence with AI-based detection systems for intrusions
Remote management and tracking of smart homes using mobile sensing and CPS platforms.
Developing resilient smart homes using predictive AI, FTC, and cellular networks
Wireless networking and embedded sensing for intelligent home automation
Security designs for smart home CPS: IDS, FTC, and secure firewalls
Adaptive cybersecurity structures for intelligent home systems with CPS and AI
Home automation ecosystems: Compatibility challenges and CPS-based solutions
Anomaly recognition in smart homes with AI-powered cyber-physical monitoring systems

Guest Editor

Dr Dirman Hanafi Burhannuddin
Department of Mechatronic and Robotic Engineering, Faculty of Electrical and Electronic Engineering,
Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM), Malaysia

Dr Ahmad Fateh Bin Mohamad Nor
Department of Electrical Power Engineering, Faculty of Electrical and Electronic Engineering,
Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM), Malaysia

Dr Yudhi Gunardi
Department of Electrical Engineering,
Mercu Buana University, Indonesia

Important Dates:

Manuscript submission: July 31, 2026
Acceptance notification: September 30, 2026
Revised manuscript due: October 31, 2026
Publication In Volume 14, Issue 4, December 2026

Writing for the Journal

The Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy accepts papers on a wide range of topics related to technology and services that support the digital economy and digital society. Papers that describe novel developments — whether existing or envisaged — and their benefits are particularly welcome. Submissions should be original, unpublished work and not under review elsewhere. Papers should be about 5000–6000 words in length, excluding references.

Papers should be written for knowledgeable readers who are not necessarily experts in the relevant field of research. Authors should carefully situate their work within the context of telecommunications or the digital economy.

Paper Submission

Prior to paper submission, authors are required to register through the JTDE website: https://jtde.telsoc.org/index.php/jtde. Please ensure the author(s) name, email address and affiliation are correctly inserted.
Paper submissions in JTDE format are entered through the JTDE website: https://jtde.telsoc.org/index.php/jtde. Please follow the checklist and authors’ guidelines.
When making a submission, please choose “Cyber-physical Systems for Smart Homes” as the topic for the JTDE section. A notification email will confirm the submission's success.

Any further inquiries can be directed to the Editor-in-Chief at editor@jtde.telsoc.org.