Dynamic Swarm Orchestration and Semantics in IoT Edge Devices: A Systematic Literature Review

In its dynamic evolution, the Internet of Things (IoT) has become increasingly pervasive in our daily lives, ranging from domestic appliances to industrial robots. This integration brings together people, processes, data, and devices, prompting new types of interactions among them. Besides acquiring data, these devices also have actuation and processing capabilities, making them susceptible of becoming autonomous entities with coordination potential. Given the inherent limitations of storage, power, or computation of IoT devices, delegation and cooperation strategies, including intermediary nodes in the network, can significantly optimize the usage of resources. Hence, this type of node can rely on swarm-inspired intelligence to orchestrate edge nodes, possibly with semantics-enabled behaviors. This study proposes a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) investigating different solutions and approaches for the orchestration of edge devices powered by declarative and semantic models of their affordances, goals, and capabilities. The SLR explores different aspects of the literature, including demographics, application domains, goals, requirements, scope, services, frameworks, and technologies, as well as challenges and future directions in the field. The purpose of this SLR is to provide software engineers, researchers, and innovators comprehensive insights into the present status of advancements in this area and a discussion of the unresolved issues and opportunities.