Modeling Actuation Constraints for IoT Applications

Internet of Things (IoT) promise to bring ease of monitoring, better efficiency and innovative services across many domains with connected devices around us. With information from critical parts of infrastructure and powerful cloud based data analytics, many applications can be developed to gain insights about IoT systems as well as transform their capabilities. Actuation applications form an essential part of these IoT systems, as they enable automation as well as fast low level decision making. However, modern IoT systems are designed for data acquisition, and actuation applications are implemented in an adhoc manner. We identify modeling constraints in a systematic manner as indispensable to support actuation applications because constraints encompass high level policies dictated by laws of physics, legal policies, user preferences. We explore data models for constraints in IoT system with the example of a home heating system, and illustrate the challenges in enforcing these constraints in the IoT system architecture.