Agentification of the Internet of Things: A systematic literature review

Abstract

The Internet of Things is aimed at controlling the physical real world using a global network of heterogeneous smart objects that are interconnected through the Internet. Nonetheless, this emergent paradigm still poses challenges in terms of intelligence, autonomy, security, privacy, and interoperability, all of which must be overcome in order for this approach to be consolidated. The integration of Internet of Things with agent technologies has been proposed as an alternative. In this article, we present a general overview of the main preliminary models, theoretical and experimental studies, and applications currently proposed to carry out the agentification of the Internet of Things through modeling smart objects and networks of Internet of Things objects using software agents. Furthermore, we present an analysis of the main strengths, opportunities, weaknesses, and threats of this approach in terms of computational intelligence. Finally, we discuss the main challenges that must be overcome in order for the agentification process of the Internet of Things to become a consolidated paradigm to build cognitive Internet of Things applications.