This book is a survey of trends and research leading to the next level of software in the Internet of Things (IoT). Starting from today’s rapidly expanding world of ubiquitous, Internet-connected sensors, this book takes you to the next generation of IoT intelligence. Today we mostly have static devices relaying measurement events to central servers; tomorrow we will have intelligent, independent, decentralized software modules making on-the-fly decisions about what data to send and where to send it.

In the authors’ words, an agent is an “autonomous, problem-solving, and goal-driven computational entity.” Industrial agents are further distinguished by “hardware integration, reliability, fault tolerance, scalability, industrial standard compliance, quality assurance, resilience, manageability, and maintainability.” The book explores these software components in three sections. Part 1 uses the first three chapters to present foundational concepts and definitions. Part 2 spans the next seven chapters and describes complementary concepts and technologies. The following 11 chapters comprise Part 3, “Industrial Agent Applications,” a catalog of existing industrial agent usage in many different sectors. The final chapter (22) is a survey and study of the factors that have impeded or accelerated the growth and adoption of industrial agent systems.

Overall, the book provides a taxonomy and ontology for the discussion of advanced agent development in the IoT. It provides an extended survey of the field, contrasting, comparing, and citing every notable research effort that has contributed to the current state of the art. A reader could consider this volume to be a summary of phase one, and the launching platform for stage two in industrial agent development.