Claudio Savaglio

Integration of agent-based and Cloud Computing for the smart objects-oriented IoT

In the future Internet of Things (IoT), smart objects will be the fundamental building blocks for the creation of cyber-physical smart pervasive systems in a great variety of application domains ranging from health-care to transportation, from logistics to smart grid and cities. The implementation of a smart objects-oriented IoT is a complex challenge as distributed, autonomous, and heterogeneous IoT components at different levels of abstractions and granularity need to cooperate among themselves, with conventional networked IT infrastructures, and also with human users. In this paper, we propose the integration of two complementary mainstream paradigms for large-scale distributed computing: Agents and Cloud. Agent-based computing can support the development of decentralized, dynamic, cooperating and open IoT systems in terms of multi-agent systems. Cloud computing can enhance the IoT objects with high performance computing capabilities and huge storage resources. In particular, we introduce a cloud-assisted and agent-oriented IoT architecture that will be realized through ACOSO, an agent-oriented middleware for cooperating smart objects, and BodyCloud, a sensor-cloud infrastructure for large-scale sensor-based systems.

Enabling IoT interoperability through opportunistic smartphone-based mobile gateways

In the near future, all our everyday things and objects will be both connected to the Internet and equipped with enough sensing, acting and processing capabilities to exploit the full potential benefits of the so called Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm. Even the simplest objects will become smart because they will be interconnected to other objects to share and collect data from the environments in which they are placed thus paving the way to novel application services, computing and communication scenarios.In this context, interoperability among different standards and communication technologies is still a significant challenge that we have started to address by proposing a smartphone-based mobile gateway acting as a flexible and transparent interface between different IoT devices and the Internet. The presented unified, high-level and extendible software architecture supports opportunistic IoT devices discovery, control and management coupled with data processing, collection and diffusion functionalities.A specific testbed on common smartphones with different hardware and software capabilities was deployed to evaluate the real feasibility of the designed solution measuring the system performance in terms of energy consumption, memory and CPU usage in high and low load scenarios. According to the obtained results, the implemented software architecture for multi-standard and multi-technology interoperation presents a reduced use of hardware resources in front of a relatively high energy consumption value, mostly due to the simultaneously active radio interfaces combined with a small battery capacity, that limits the smartphone lifetime. Nevertheless, the presented general approach is still remarkable because this latter aspect will most likely be exceeded, in a short time, thanks to daily technological advancements in both batteries and radio interfaces.

Middlewares for Smart Objects and Smart Environments: Overview and Comparison

In the last few years, the Internet of Things (IoT) is gaining more and more attention both in the academic and in the industrial worlds. IoT is a concept describing a vision in which everyday objects will be connected to the Internet, will be identified, and will, possibly, communicate with other devices. These objects are typically referred as “smart objects”, which can be defined as real artifacts augmented with computing, communication, sensing/actuation and storing functionalities. Their importance resides in the capabilities they have to make physical environments “smart” so as to provide novel cyberphysical services to people. In the last years, several middlewares for SOs were proposed. Middlewares, widely used in conventional distributed systems, are fundamental tools for the design and implementation of smart objects as well as of smart environment applications. They provide general and specific abstractions (e.g. object computation model, inter-object communication, sensory/actuation interfaces, discovery service, knowledge management) through which smart objects and their related applications can be easily built up. In this chapter, we present an overview of middlewares for smart objects and smart environments and compare them according to the most important general and specific requirements that have been identified in the literature so far. Moreover, such middlewares are also compared according to a feature-oriented framework to better highlight their distinctive properties. The comparison therefore provides a clear picture about the suitability of such middlewares to support the development of SO-based IoT systems. Finally, the chapter will briefly discuss on-going challenges in this research area.

Towards a Development Methodology for Smart Object-Oriented IoT Systems: A Metamodel Approach

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a large-scale complex networked cyber physical system in which the Smart Objects (SOs) will be the fundamental building blocks. Although, many research efforts in the IoT realm have been to date devoted to device, networking and application service perspectives, software engineering approaches for the development of IoT systems are still in their infancy. This paper introduces a novel software engineering approach aiming to support a systematic development of SOs-based systems. The proposed approach is based on metamodels that are defined at different levels of abstraction to support the development phases of analysis, design and implementation. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated through a simple yet effective case study, showing the development of a smart office SO from the high-level design to its agent-based implementation.

Modeling and Simulating Internet-of-Things Systems: A Hybrid Agent-Oriented Approach

The focus of the Internet has recently shifted from current computers and mobile devices to everyday objects, people, and places; consequently, the Internet of Things (IoT) promises to be not only a compelling vision but the actual driving force of the upcoming fourth Industrial Revolution. Novel cyber-physical, customized, and highly pervasive services are impacting our lives, involving several stakeholders and fostering an unseen globally interconnected ecosystem. However, IoT system development is a multifaceted process that’s complex, error-prone, and time-consuming. Although modeling and simulation are crucial aspects that could effectively support IoT system development, an integrated approach synergistically providing both of them is lacking. The authors propose a hybrid approach that uses agents for IoT modeling and OMNeT for simulation, providing mapping guidelines between the agent paradigm and the OMNeT simulator abstractions. The proposed approach has been applied in small-, medium-, and large-scale IoT scenarios, where relevant performance indexes of IoT entities communication have been measured and analyzed.

Empowering smart cities through interoperable Sensor Network Enablers

Sensor Networks are increasingly playing a fundamental role in many application scenarios such as agriculture, maritime, healthcare, industrial and even military application. However, the high heterogeneity of sensor networks poses a great challenge in interoperability and cooperative work, and the building of technological bridges among wireless sensor network (WSN) islands is more and more a must for smart cities for an efficient operation. In this paper, we present a model for an Area Sensor Network (ASN) that combines and connects small networks (Body Sensor Networks), WSNs and even fixed sensor networks within a particular area of interest. Initial tests show that the combination of sensed data from multiple sources (sensor networks) produces synergetic services useful for smart cities.

Towards interoperable, cognitive and autonomic IoT systems: An agent-based approach

Within the Information and Communication Technology hype cycle the Internet of Things (IoT) represents a prominent subject, being rich in potentiality as well as in development issues. In this paper, we face the IoT developing process first “in the small” by designing the Smart Objects (SOs, representing the fundamental IoT building blocks) as agents, and after “in the large” by treating the IoT systems as Multi Agent Systems (MASs). Indeed, the agent abstraction is a suitable paradigm to instill smartness and autonomy within a single SO and consequently to realize distributed, self-steering and heterogeneous IoT systems. In such directions, the Agent-based COoperating SO (ACOSO) middleware represents a viable solution for the programming, development and management of agent-based SO systems while its performance verification on different IoT networks of different scale has been made through the Omnet++ simulator.

Autonomic and Cognitive Architectures for the Internet of Things

Internet of Things promises to be an innovative scenario in which the user experience will be enriched by new cyber-physical services and content, shared by multiple actors things, places, people with an higher frequency and quality of the current ones. The countless challenges and opportunities that the development of such an ecosystem entails require a marked intervention on the current Internet architectural frameworks and models, primarily as regards the management function. Pointing in this direction, the most relevant autonomic and cognitive architectures for the Internet of Things have been surveyed and compared.

Agent-Based Computing in the Internet of Things: A Survey

The Internet of Things is a revolutionary concept, within cyberphysical systems, rich in potential as well as in multifacet requirements and development issues. To properly address them and to fully support IoT systems development, Agent-Based Computing represents a suitable and effective modeling, programming, simulation paradigm. As matter of facts, agent metaphors, concepts, techniques, methods and tools have been widely exploited to develop IoT systems. Main contemporary contributions in this direction are surveyed and reported in this work.

MotionSynthesis toolset (MoST): a toolset for human motion data synthesis and validation

Wearable computing devices and body sensor networks (BSNs) are becoming more prevalent. Collecting the data necessary to develop the new concepts for these systems can be difficult. We present the MotionSynthesis Toolset (MoST) to alleviate some of the difficulties in data collection and algorithm development. This toolset allows researchers to generate a sequence of movements (i.e. a diary), synthesize a data stream using real sensor data, visualize, and validate the sequence of movements and data with video and waveforms.