Virtual Sensor Middleware: Managing IoT Data for the Fog-Cloud Platform

Abstract

This paper introduces the Virtual Sensor Middleware (VSM), which facilitates distributed sensor data processing on multiple fog nodes. VSM uses a Virtual Sensor as the core component of the middleware. The virtual sensor concept is redesigned to support functionality beyond sensor/device virtualization, such as deploying a set of virtual sensors to represent an IoT application and distributed sensor data processing across multiple fog nodes. Furthermore, the virtual sensor deals with the heterogeneous nature of IoT devices and the various communication protocols using different adapters to communicate with the IoT devices and the underlying protocol. VSM uses the publish-subscribe design pattern to allow virtual sensors to receive data from other virtual sensors for seamless sensor data consumption without tight integration among virtual sensors, which reduces application development efforts. Furthermore, VSM enhances the design of virtual sensors with additional components that support sharing of data in dynamic environments where data receivers may change over time, data aggregation is required, and dealing with missing data is essential for the applications.