Software Design Pattern on the Edge

Internet of Things (IoT) is the future of communication technology and its applications range from smart cities, health, transport to agriculture among others. Embedded systems, networks, sensors, devices, communication protocols and software applications contribute to enable connectivity between devices located at the network boundary. Edge computing enables data processing on devices with limited hardware capabilities. Software engineering practices could be applied in the development of IoT systems to ensure applications are reliable and operate efficiently. However, there are no proper guidelines about which best software engineering practices might be applied to IoT systems. The main contribution of this study is to investigate the application of software design pattern in an IoT environment in terms of resource and power consumption of battery-powered Edge devices. Two variations of the Singleton design pattern have been implemented in an IoT computing scenario. Experiments demonstrate that the Singleton design pattern can reduce processor, memory, power and battery usage of the device by an average of 0.3%, 0.1%, 0.7% and 0.8% respectively.