DHEA: A dynamic hierarchical edge architecture for a participatory approach toward IoT evolution

In recent years, Internet of Things or IoT has been enjoying a very rapid growth. However, traditional approach toward IoT deployment requires specialized knowledge where issues are handled by an individual or a group of individuals and is not participatory. In addition, it is being recognized that with the fast increase in the number of objects connected to the IoT, the centralized cloud based management scheme is bound to lead to inefficiencies. In this paper, we propose a new generation IoT platform called KIBAN which is based on openness and adopts a participatory approach toward deployment of IoT. We also propose a novel hierarchical architecture called Dynamic Hierarchical Edge Architecture or DHEA to overcome the potential issues with the centralized cloud based approach. We describe how KIBAN could be realized using the DHEA architecture. Because of the layered structure of KIBAN, it is possible to easily implement part of the platform even on gateways with low computing capabilities. Experiments show that such implementation can lead to a two times faster response time compared with that in a cloud based system.