Resource Allocation Using Virtual Objects in the Internet of Things: a QoI Oriented Consensus Algorithm

The pervasive spread of smart objects is encouraging the development of smart environments, such as Smart Cities and Smart Homes. In the Internet of Things (IoT) vision, even the most common and simple object is expected to acquire information from the surrounding ambient and to cooperate with other objects to achieve a common goal, fulfilling the expected quality requirements. In such a heterogeneous and complex scenario, optimal allocation of resources (e.g. available energy, computing speed, storage capacity) is paramount in order not to overload some objects. In this paper, a framework that makes use of Virtual Objects (VOs) to manage the objects of an IoT system is proposed. Using VOs, the resources, functionalities and capabilities available on the objects are virtualised and exposed to the other objects to cooperate for executing the deployed applications. A distributed algorithm for resources allocation based on consensus has been developed to: distribute the workload among the objects that can cooperate to the same task; ensure Quality of Information (QoI) requirements. Simulation results show that, compared to a static frequency allocation, the algorithm enhances the performance of the system with an average improvement of 62% in network lifetime, and confirm the compliance to QoI requirements.