Agent-Based Modeling of an IoT Network

As the Internet of Things (IoT) becomes more of a reality, there is an increasing number of wireless and wired devices that are connected to the Internet. Future generations of telecommunications networks must evolve to deal with the anticipated high demand of the radio spectrum. As telecommunications networks become more complex, modeling networks as complex systems that are flexible in the face of future advancements becomes increasingly important. As such, this study investigating the utility of agent-based modeling (ABM) as a method of modeling IoT networks. ABM provides a method of modeling complex systems by modeling systems from the ground up, which allows for a deeper investigation of the interactions that shape the ultimate system performance. In order to demonstrate this utility, herein we model an IoT-based road traffic management system. Specifically, we conduct an investigation of the impact of MAC protocol selection on communication performance in terms of spectrum utilization and accuracy of information. Additionally, we characterize impact of the MAC protocol selection on the application performance in terms of vehicular waiting time. In doing so, we provide an examination of the factors that drive the performance of IoT-based systems and an indication of the value added to communication system design by the focused consideration of system interactions enabled by ABM.