Agent‐based negotiation approach for feature interactions in smart home systems using calculus of the context‐aware ambient

Abstract

Smart Home Systems (SHSs) provide several services which are tailored to different residents' preferences. As a result, SHSs are highly exposed to undesirable interactions, known as feature interactions (FIs). FIs might occur as a result of a conflict in services' goals or a conflict with residents' preferences. Previous studies have proposed solutions based on applying priorities, in which some services or preferable features are disabled in favour of other services. Alternatively, the agent-based negotiation approach (ABNA) utilises agents and applies negotiation, enabling services with contrary features to work simultaneously. ABNA avoids applying priority between services or house residents' preferences whenever a space for a compromise exists. The mechanism of ABNA is based on the use of a hierarchy of features based on their contribution to the function of the service or on the importance of these features to house residents. To achieve a compromise between conflicting services, ABNA models services and residents by using agents, and implements a negotiation algorithm that allows services with conflicting features to work simultaneously. This paper presents a description of ABNA with a formal specification of ABNA in the Calculus of Context-aware Ambient (CCA). This enables the formal analysis of ABNA by using the execution environment of CCA.

Survey on recent smart gateways for smart home: Systems, technologies, and challenges

“…In Tables 5 and 6, their key features are summarized. Hereinto, DECT ULE is the latest version of the DECT, which is one of new generation DECT or CAT-iq (cordless advanced technology-Internet & quality) series that chronologically include CAT-iq 1.0, CAT-iq 2.0, CAT-iq 2.1, CAT-iq Data, and CAT-iq IOT 12 . Actually, the core of CAT-iq IOT is DECT ULE.…”

“…Especially, they also presented a cloud‐based structure of a smart home. In this structure, the smart home is regarded as a smart agent, which was proposed by Das et al 30 Considering the complexity of feature interactions in smart home and further dealing with the conflicts among different services and residents' preferences, Alfakeeh et al 12 proposed an agent‐based negotiation approach (ABNA), which combines agents with negotiation mechanism, enabling services with contrary features to work simultaneously. Specifically, they presented a formal specification of ABNA utilizing calculus of context‐aware ambient, demonstrated the pragmatics of ABNA, and analyzed and verified the correctness of ABNA.…”

“…The cloud computing system is not a unique optimal scheme, which must combine with the fog and edge computing systems and comprehensively consider the computing performance, security, delay, data caching, dynamic service placement, and so on. [5][6][7][8][9][10] Although a lot of companies and researchers are attempting various smart gateway technologies and methods from different angles, ranging from hardware to system structure and software, from functions to services and applications, or, from cloud to fog and edge computing, including QoE, intelligent agent, software-defined network (SDN), network function virtualization (NFV), and network slicing, [11][12][13] the foresaid problems still expect to be solved perfectly. Moreover, actually, there is a long way to go to deal with those problems and achieve those goals.…”