S2NetM: A Semantic Social Network of Things Middleware for Developing Smart and Collaborative IoT-Based Solutions

Abstract

The Social Internet of Things (SIoT) paradigm combines the benefits of social networks with IoT networks to create more collaborative and efficient systems, offering enhanced scalability, better navigability, flexibility, and dynamic decision making. However, SIoT also presents challenges related to dynamic friendship selection, privacy and security, interoperability, and standardization. To fully unlock the potential of SIoT, it is crucial to establish semantic interoperability between the various entities, applications, and networks that comprise the system. This paper introduces the Semantic Social Network of Things Middleware (S2NetM), which leverages social relationships to enhance semantic interoperability in SIoT systems. The S2NetM employs semantic reasoning and alignment techniques to facilitate the creation of dynamic, context-aware social networks of things that can collaboratively work together and enable new opportunities for IoT-based solutions. The main contributions of this paper are the specification of the S2NetM and the associated ontology, as well as the discussion of a case study demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed solution.