Calculating LWM2M resource semantic distance through SENACT ontology

The concept of Internet of Things (IoT) envisions that any type of device should be able to be connected in any type of environment. Due to the heterogeneity of the scenarios where IoT is applied, the capability discovery and dynamic relationship establishment between devices become relevant. One way to define relation between devices is through similarities in functionality. Thus, we define that two devices are close semantically, or have a short semantic distance between them, when the devices have similar functionalities. We have proposed in a previous work a metric called LwRSD (LWM2M Resource Semantic Distance) to calculate similarities between devices utilizing a subjective approach for weighting properties. In this paper, we describe an ontology called SENACT that allows developing a method to calculate the Semantic Distance between devices using weights determined in an objective way. SENACT builds axioms from sensing and actuation concepts. The results shows that is it possible to group devices with similar functionalities in an objective way using SENACT and uncover properties shared between devices that are not immediately apparent.