A Multi-agent Based Flexible IoT Edge Computing Architecture Harmonizing Its Control with Cloud Computing

Abstract

Recently, in large-scale Internet of Things (IoT) systems based on cloud computing, problems such as increase in network load, delay in response, and invasion of privacy have become concerning. To solve these problems, edge computing has been introduced to the IoT systems. However, if the cloud function is excessively migrated to the edge, the collected data cannot be shared between IoT systems, thus reducing the system's usefulness. In this paper, we propose a multi-agent based flexible IoT edge computing architecture to balance global optimization by a cloud and local optimization by edges and to optimize the role of the cloud server and the edge servers dynamically. Further, as an application example, we introduce an energy management system based on the proposed edge computing system architecture to demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposal.