Managing Heterogeneous Communication Challenges in the Internet of Things Using Connector Variability

Abstract

Internet of Things (IoT) comprises smart systems that embrace -computational and physical elements. In these systems, physical and software components are often tightly coupled. They are used widely in today's technological systems, such as smart buildings, avionics, self-driving cars, etc. IoT systems are typically developed using hardware and software components with different interaction types. This chapter introduces an approach to manage hyper-connectivity in the IoT through connectors that are equipped with variability capability. Computational and physical elements in IoT-based systems are represented as components. Different types of communications among these components are abstracted and managed in the definition of connectors. XCOSEML is a modelling language that leverages the variability concept for the component-oriented development methodology. Variable connectors of XCOSEML are employed to address the hyper-connectivity challenges of the IoT domain. In our approach, systems are designed with XCOSEML constructs, and IoT domain needs are mapped to connector mechanisms. The heterogeneity in IoT communications is addressed by connector variability. The proposed approach is illustrated with a case study for proof of concept.