IoT Ecosystems Design: A Multimethod, Multicriteria Assessment Methodology

This article proposes a methodology to assist decision makers in the selection of a more proper device system for a specific task, a versatile methodology providing mechanisms for an assessment based on multicriteria with the capacity to apply different decision methods, taking also into consideration criteria constraints defined by stakeholders. Decision makers are able to have better reasoning and more aware analysis of diverse (e.g., hardware architecture and communication protocols) and very often contradicting criteria, such as energy consumption versus computation speed. This is addressed using a model-driven-based approach, which gives support for a high openness to the use of different, new, and even user-defined decision methods, including criteria and respective constraints through their formal specification. Proposing an assessment methodology with multimethods, multicriteria, and multiconstraints, this work tries to answer which methods could be applied or developed to assist in devices [i.e., Internet-of-Things (IoT) systems] assessment showing that a more conscious/aware, accurate selection of the more suitable device system(s) can be made, and consequently improve IoT ecosystems design.