CSDA: Rule-based complex sensor data aggregation system for M2M gateway

To reduce the server load and communication cost of machine-to-machine (M2M) systems, sensor data are aggregated in M2M gateways. The C language is typically used for programming the aggregation logic, and the program is embedded into the firmware. However, developing aggregation programs is difficult for M2M service providers because it requires gateway-specific knowledge, and consideration must be given to CPU and memory resources. In addition, modifying aggregation logic requires firmware updates, which are risky. We propose a rule-based sensor data aggregation system, called the complex sensor data aggregator (CSDA) for M2M gateways. Data aggregation is categorized into filtering, statistical calculation, and concatenation. The proposed CSDA supports this aggregation process in three steps: the input, data processing, and output steps. The behaviors of these steps are configured by an XML based rule. The CSDA also supports update modules, which download and overwrite aggregation rules from the server when the modification of data aggregation logic is required. In this case, firmware updates are not necessary. The proposed system is evaluated in an M2M gateway experimental environment. Results show that developing CSDA configurations is much easier than using C because the configuration amount decreases by 10%. In addition, the performance evaluation demonstrates the proposed system´s ability to operate on M2M gateways. CPU usage was less than 10%, even with a heavy load, and memory consumption was 128 Kbytes.