On efficient resource allocation in the internet of things environment

Abstract

In the Internet of Things environment, it is often the case that a smart device is compatible with a set of gateways. A service composition in such environment may require a set of devices to cooperate to perform a task. These smart devices must be connected with compatible gateways efficiently to maintain the quality of service. In this paper, we consider the problem of allocating devices to compatible gateways while minimizing the maximum traffic at a gateway. We develop a polynomial-time algorithm when all devices required by a service have the same data transmission requirement and establish optimality of the proposed algorithm. We establish that the allocation problem is NP-complete when all participating smart devices have different data transmission requirement. We develop an approximation algorithm to bind smart devices with compatible gateways dynamically when devices have different data transmission requirement. We establish that the maximum traffic assigned to a gateway by the approximation algorithm is at most twice the optimal assignment.