Internet of Things

4Toward a Methodology of IoT-a: Embedded Agents for the Internet of Things

4.1. Introduction

With the increase in the number of connected objects around us, the concepts of the IoT (Internet of Things) and Big Data are expanding to cover a wide variety of areas of application. The term “IoT” has been adopted successfully by the world of industry. However, less publicized research on the concepts of ambient intelligence, diffuse intelligence or smart objects has been going on for years. When it comes to this term, there are still many hurdles that need to be overcome. Much of the research done on the IoT is based on its architecture, the control of connected objects [KIR 15], their reasoning, sensors and effectors or the resources available to them [MAM 12, DUJ 11]. Different works [COU 12, SER 93] underline the parallels that can be made between research on multi-agent systems and the field of the IoT, for example, parallels regarding interactions, communication protocols, interoperability and autonomous behavior.

Our main problem is to conceive and experiment with an embedded multi-agent platform to allow different connected objects to interact autonomously. Our approach is based on the concept of spime, a neologism introduced by Sterling [STE 05]. A spime is an object localized in space and time and strongly associated with its history and the data that it carries within itself. The difference between the material and immaterial in the data is reduced to its minimum possible. ...