Autonomous configuration of communication systems for IoT smart nodes supported by machine learning

Abstract

Machine Learning brings intelligence services to IoT systems, with Edge Computing contributing for edge nodes to be part of these services, allowing data to be processed directly in the nodes in real time. This paper introduces a new way of creating a self-configurable IoT node, in terms of communications, supported by machine learning and edge computing, in order to achieve a better efficiency in terms of power consumption, as well as a comparison between regression models and between deploying them in edge or cloud fashions, with a real case implementation. The correct choice of protocol and configuration parameters can make the difference between a device battery lasting 100 times more. The proposed method predicts the energy consumption and quality of signal using regressions based on node location, distance and obstacles and the transmission power used. With an accuracy of 99.88% and a margin of error of 1.504 mA for energy consumption and 98.68% and a margin of error of 1.9558 dBm for link quality, allowing the node to use the best transmission power values for reliability and energy efficiency. With this it is possible to achieve a network that can reduce up to 68% the energy consumption of nodes while only compromising in 7% the quality of the network. Besides that, edge computing proves to be a better solution when energy efficient nodes are needed, as less messages are exchanged, and the reduced latency allows nodes to be configured in less time.