Agents-Based Algorithm for a Distributed Information System in Internet of Things

Abstract

Traditional information management approaches in distributed systems are most often unsuitable for modern Internet of Things (IoT) environments due to the huge amount and the extreme dynamism of the entities involved. Smart objects (enhanced devices or IoT services belonging to a smart system) interact and maintain relations which need of effective and efficient handling mechanisms better to meet users and services requirements. This article proposes an agent-based algorithm for achieving a distributed resources organization in an IoT environment. Software agents, representing each a single smart object, execute a set of local computations simultaneously, enabling an organized structure to emerge at global level. A natural language processing approach, able to capture the semantic context and represent objects with high-dimensional vectors, was exploited to map the IoT objects, so enabling advanced agents' operations. The emerging organized virtual structure, i.e., a similarity-based overlay network of agents, allows building informed resource selection/discovery services, therefore more efficient, in a highly dynamic and, basically, unstructured environment. Preliminary results confirm the validity of the approach.