A Role-Based Approach for Orchestrating Emergent Configurations in the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) is envisioned as a global network of connected things enabling ubiquitous machine-to-machine (M2M) communication. With estimations of billions of sensors and devices to be connected in the coming years, the IoT has been advocated as having a great potential to impact the way we live, but also how we work. However, the connectivity aspect in itself only accounts for the underlying M2M infrastructure. In order to properly support engineering IoT systems and applications, it is key to orchestrate heterogeneous 'things' in a seamless, adaptive and dynamic manner, such that the system can exhibit a goal-directed behaviour and take appropriate actions. Yet, this form of interaction between things needs to take a user-centric approach and by no means elude the users' requirements. To this end, contextualisation is an important feature of the system, allowing it to infer user activities and prompt the user with relevant information and interactions even in the absence of intentional commands. In this work we propose a role-based model for emergent configurations of connected systems as a means to model, manage, and reason about IoT systems including the user's interaction with them. We put a special focus on integrating the user perspective in order to guide the emergent configurations such that systems goals are aligned with the users' intentions. We discuss related scientific and technical challenges and provide several uses cases outlining the concept of emergent configurations.Comment: In Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on the Internet of Agents @AAMAS201

Agent and cyber-physical system based self-organizing and self-adaptive intelligent shopfloor

The increasing demand of customized production results in huge challenges to the traditional manufacturing systems. In order to allocate resources timely according to the production requirements and to reduce disturbances, a framework for the future intelligent shopfloor is proposed in this paper. The framework consists of three primary models, namely the model of smart machine agent, the self-organizing model, and the self-adaptive model. A cyber-physical system for manufacturing shopfloor based on the multiagent technology is developed to realize the above-mentioned function models. Gray relational analysis and the hierarchy conflict resolution methods were applied to achieve the self-organizing and self-adaptive capabilities, thereby improving the reconfigurability and responsiveness of the shopfloor. A prototype system is developed, which has the adequate flexibility and robustness to configure resources and to deal with disturbances effectively. This research provides a feasible method for designing an autonomous factory with exception-handling capabilities

Governance of Autonomous Agents on the Web: Challenges and Opportunities

International audienceThe study of autonomous agents has a long tradition in the Multiagent System and the Semantic Web communities, with applications ranging from automating business processes to personal assistants. More recently, the Web of Things (WoT), which is an extension of the Internet of Things (IoT) with metadata expressed in Web standards, and its community provide further motivation for pushing the autonomous agents research agenda forward. Although representing and reasoning about norms, policies and preferences is crucial to ensuring that autonomous agents act in a manner that satisfies stakeholder requirements, normative concepts, policies and preferences have yet to be considered as first-class abstractions in Web-based multiagent systems. Towards this end, this paper motivates the need for alignment and joint research across the Multiagent Systems, Semantic Web, and WoT communities, introduces a conceptual framework for governance of autonomous agents on the Web, and identifies several research challenges and opportunities

The Internet-of-Things Meets Business Process Management: Mutual Benefits and Challenges

The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to a network of connected devices collecting and exchanging data over the Internet. These things can be artificial or natural, and interact as autonomous agents forming a complex system. In turn, Business Process Management (BPM) was established to analyze, discover, design, implement, execute, monitor and evolve collaborative business processes within and across organizations. While the IoT and BPM have been regarded as separate topics in research and practice, we strongly believe that the management of IoT applications will strongly benefit from BPM concepts, methods and technologies on the one hand; on the other one, the IoT poses challenges that will require enhancements and extensions of the current state-of-the-art in the BPM field. In this paper, we question to what extent these two paradigms can be combined and we discuss the emerging challenges

The role of Artificial Intelligence and distributed computing in IoT applications

[EN]The exchange of ideas between scientists and technicians, from both academic and business areas, is essential in order to ease the development of systems which can meet the demands of today’s society. Technology transfer in this field is still a challenge and, for that reason, this type of contributions are notably considered in this compilation. This book brings in discussions and publications concerning the development of innovative techniques of IoT complex problems. The technical program focuses both on high quality and diversity, with contributions in well-established and evolving areas of research. Specifically, 10 chapters were submitted to this book. The editors particularly encouraged and welcomed contributions on AI and distributed computing in IoT applications.Financed by regional government of Castilla y León and FEDER funds

The role of Artificial Intelligence and Distributed computing in IoT applications

[ES] La serie «El rol de la inteligencia artificial y la computación distribuida en las aplicaciones IoT» contiene publicaciones sobre la teoría y aplicaciones de la computación distribuida y la inteligencia artificial en el Internet de las cosas. Prácticamente todas las disciplinas como la ingeniería, las ciencias naturales, la informática y las ciencias de la información, las TIC, la economía, los negocios, el comercio electrónico, el medio ambiente, la salud y las ciencias de la vida están cubiertas. La lista de temas abarca todas las áreas de los sistemas inteligentes modernos y la informática como: inteligencia computacional, soft computing incluyendo redes neuronales, inteligencia social, inteligencia ambiental, sistemas auto-organizados y adaptativos, computación centrada en el ser humano y centrada en el ser humano, sistemas de recomendación, control inteligente, robótica y mecatrónica, incluida la colaboración entre el ser humano y la máquina, paradigmas basados en el conocimiento, paradigmas de aprendizaje, ética de la máquina, análisis inteligente de datos, gestión del conocimiento, agentes inteligentes, toma de decisiones inteligentes y apoyo, seguridad de la red inteligente, gestión de la confianza, entretenimiento interactivo, inteligencia de la Web y multimedia. Las publicaciones en el marco de «El rol de la inteligencia artificial y la computación distribuida en las aplicaciones IoT» son principalmente las actas de seminarios, simposios y conferencias. Abarcan importantes novedades recientes en la materia, tanto de naturaleza fundacional como aplicable. Un importante rasgo característico de la serie es el corto tiempo de publicación. Esto permite una rápida y amplia difusión de los resultados de las investigaciones[EN] The series «The Role of Artificial Intelligence and Distributed Computing in IoT Applications» contains publications on the theory and applications of distributed computing and artificial intelligence in the Internet of Things. Virtually all disciplines such as engineering, natural sciences, computer and information sciences, ICT, economics, business, e-commerce, environment, health and life sciences are covered. The list of topics covers all areas of modern intelligent systems and computer science: computational intelligence, soft computing including neural networks, social intelligence, ambient intelligence, self-organising and adaptive systems, human-centred and people-centred computing, recommendation systems, intelligent control, robotics and mechatronics including human-machine collaboration, knowledge-based paradigms, learning paradigms, machine ethics, intelligent data analysis, knowledge management, intelligent agents, intelligent decision making and support, intelligent network security, trust management, interactive entertainment, web intelligence, and multimedia. The publications in the framework of «The Role of Artificial Intelligence and Distributed Computing in IoT Applications» are mainly the proceedings of seminars, symposia and conferences. They cover important recent developments in the field, whether of a foundational or applicable character. An important feature of the series is the short publication time. This allows for the rapid and wide dissemination of research results

Agent-based IoT Coordination for Smart Cities Considering Security and Privacy

The interest in Internet of Things (IoT) is increasing steeply, and the use of their smart objects and their composite services may become widespread in the next few years increasing the number of smart cities. This technology can benefit from scalable solutions that integrate composite services of multiple-purpose smart objects for the upcoming large-scale use of integrated services in IoT. This work proposes an agent-based approach for supporting large-scale use of IoT for providing complex integrated services. Its novelty relies in the use of distributed blackboards for implicit communications, decentralizing the storage and management of the blackboard information in the smart objects, which are accessed by nearby requests. This avoids (a) the common bottlenecks of implicit communications based on centralized blackboards and (b) the overload of bandwidth due to explicit peer-to-peer communications. This solution raises challenges in privacy and security, and some potential solutions are discussed in this paper. Simulations based on a region in Dublin city shows the potential utility of this approach illustrated in the domain of coordination of electric vehicles in selecting paths and charging stations

From supply chains to demand networks. Agents in retailing: the electrical bazaar

A paradigm shift is taking place in logistics. The focus is changing from operational effectiveness to adaptation. Supply Chains will develop into networks that will adapt to consumer demand in almost real time. Time to market, capacity of adaptation and enrichment of customer experience seem to be the key elements of this new paradigm. In this environment emerging technologies like RFID (Radio Frequency ID), Intelligent Products and the Internet, are triggering a reconsideration of methods, procedures and goals. We present a Multiagent System framework specialized in retail that addresses these changes with the use of rational agents and takes advantages of the new market opportunities. Like in an old bazaar, agents able to learn, cooperate, take advantage of gossip and distinguish between collaborators and competitors, have the ability to adapt, learn and react to a changing environment better than any other structure. Keywords: Supply Chains, Distributed Artificial Intelligence, Multiagent System.Postprint (published version