On implementing socialization algorithms on Virtual Objects in the Social IoT

The idea of equipping smart devices with the capacity to form social connections with their peers is gaining popularity. Indeed, it is a feature with a lot of promise for fostering device collaboration, speeding up and improving service discovery, and evaluating the reliability of devices by utilizing appropriate features based on peer evaluations in social networks. While numerous architectural solutions have been offered along with various concepts for creating the devices’ social network, the question of how to build and sustain the devices’ social connections has been neglected. This paper proposes a possible implementation of a Social Virtual Object as a constituent entity of the Social Internet of Things (SIoT) based on the concept of virtualization. In the experimental evaluation, the performances in the management of the relationships that originate from the proximity among objects and that represent the greatest difficulties of realization are analyzed. The field trials show the effectiveness of the proposed system in creating relationships and highlight some problems that should be addressed in the formalization of the social relationship in the SIoT.