Agent-Based System Architecture Supporting Remote Collaboration via an Internet of Multimedia Things Approach

In this paper, we propose an agent-based architecture for remote collaboration support systems that enables the exchange of synchronous and asynchronous multimedia streams at remote sites using an Internet of Multimedia Things (IoMT) approach. First, we design and implement Internet of Things (IoT) applications that contain simple sensors and actuators. These applications are modularized into agent-based subsystems that can be incorporated into an IoT application with agent operations. Our aim is to develop remote collaboration support applications composed of video, data, and document channels. Because the applications will exchange enormous multimedia streams between remote sites, we propose a novel IoMT system architecture composed of several channel types that consist of various resource and network components. Users can dynamically incorporate these channels into applications to update the IoMT system’s effects. Finally, we demonstrate and discuss the experimental results of our application to validate its ability to rapidly supply multimedia resources via multi-agent collaboration. Adding to its novelty, the developed system is in practical use for collaboration between France and Japan.