A multi-layer trust-based middleware framework for handling interoperability issues in heterogeneous IOTs

Traditional wireless technologies have evolutionary converged to Internet of Thing (IoT) for devices and service interactions. In the past decade, the academia, industry 4.0 and end-user interest has also grown drastically in IoT applications and their services. However, this increase in IoT services demand has witnessed a new challenge of seamless interaction among heterogeneous devices that are varied, diverse and dynamic in nature. In this connection, another challenge is tracing the footprint of these IoT interactions for trust-based interactions, that further becomes complex with the introduction of new applications. For instance, in many situations, IoT services are generally not self-contained and sufficient. They need to coordinate and interact with other IoT services held in the surroundings. The large-scale deployment of IoT based services is not conceivable without addressing interoperability and services coordination related challenges. In this regard, a comprehensive set of tools and techniques associated with IoT heterogeneity and interoperability have been explored. This article proposes a middleware framework to consider IoT heterogeneity and interoperability issues in different service interactions. Later, the article investigates experimentally, the trust measurements among IOTs, their decay, and the effectiveness of dynamic selection of trust parameters along with their thresholds. Appropriateness of time intervals have also been tested in various types of service interactions. To demonstrate middleware applicability, the trust-based algorithm has been applied in a service-oriented environment along with different types of services.