Internet of Things (IoT) Agent (IoTA) Framework for Evaluating Effectiveness and Efficiency

The Internet of Things (IoT) is increasingly being used to create smart platforms where operators are being removed from the loop. These smart capabilities include collaborative IoT sensors and platforms that are self-aware and provide capabilities of self-prediction, self-configuration, and self-maintenance. To fully take advantage of these advances, however, testbeds and frameworks are needed to evaluate IoT approaches in representative laboratory and operational environments that allow for a fly before you buy approach when replacing traditional sensors and networked platforms with smart IoT alternatives.In response to these needs, we propose to develop an IoT Agent (IoTA) Framework that provides a path to evolve and evaluate intelligent agent designs that interface with Naval IoT sensors and platforms. This path supports early stages of design driven by behavioral simulation environments, through interaction with hardware in a laboratory setting, with eventual support for interaction with actual hardware in an operational setting.The proof of concept will demonstrate several scenarios in Joint Semi-Automated Forces (JSAF) or a similar simulation environment and show how IoTA is used to test and evaluate IoT solutions by driving hardware sensors and systems from actual, emulated, and simulated environments while extracting key performance metrics from the IoT target.