Book excerpt: Showcasing the diverse ways that IoT can be employed for improvement in many areas of contemporary life, this new volume explores a multitude of IoT applications that provide advanced solutions for real-world problems. The selection of topics includes network on chip as the new paradigm for system on chip integration for maintaining high performance for IoT applications; new router designs to increase speed; and the challenges of wireless underground sensor networks, which have a wide range of applications in military, underground sensing, testing soil traits and moisture content, pollution control and location detection, security, and detection of natural calamities. Various state-of-the-art techniques such as optimization schemes, blockchain, machine learning, orthogonal frequency division multiplexing, etc., are also discussed in the context of cognitive IoT. The volume considers the uses of IoT in agriculture, discussing challenges along with solutions with the help of the latest technical smart tools to uplift the farming community, specifically IoT applications for information gathering to improve yield productivity, food and crop quality and sustainability, monitoring toxic substances and soil properties, etc. The book also covers a broad spectrum of IoT applications in the educational industry along with the challenges associated with them and how to facilitate the use of smart classroom technology. A chapter on IoT in the healthcare industry presents an IoT-based GPS-enabled smart jacket design to monitor heart rate, sugar level, blood pressure, fever, and stress level. The authors also present an IoT-based Peltier air conditioner design that overcomes the limitations of existing HVAC framework, a review of various energy harvesting techniques to generate electrical power from non-conventional power sources with their merits and demerits, and much more.