A high-end IoT devices framework to foster beyond-connectivity capabilities in 5G/B5G architecture

The impressive advancements in embedded systems and the integration of new types of smart devices into the Internet of Things (IoT) continue to revolutionize the communication technologies. Gradually, such devices are enriched with additional capabilities (e.g., sense, learn, reason, move, act on the environment) beyond classic connectivity services. However, there are no unified and coherent software architectures to seamlessly integrate and manage high-end devices. This work envisages a novel architectural framework, ITHACA: IoT High-end Autonomous Cooper-Ative framework, for 5G and beyond communications toward seamless integration of autonomous and intelligent devices. The framework offers necessary functional enrichments on top of existing architecture involving functions, mechanisms, algorithms, and protocols. The usefulness of the proposed ITHACA framework is corroborated considering a recent Industry 4.0 use case of aerial robotics pertaining to design of an intelligent industrial infrastructure inspection system.