On Inferring how resources are shared in IoT
ecosystems; a Graph Theoretic Approach
N. Kouvelas∗ , V. Balasubramanian∗ , A. G. Voyiatzis† , R. R. Prasad∗ , D. Pesch‡
∗ ES,
EEMCS, TU Delft, the Netherlands,
† SBA
Research, Austria,‡ Nimbus Research Center, CIT, Ireland
N.Kouvelas, V.Balasubramanian, R.R.VenkateshaPrasad@tudelft.nl, avoyiatzis@sba-research.org, Dirk.Pesch@cit.ie
Abstract—The Internet of Things (IoT) is an enabler
of the digital transformation dictating new needs and
trends in the domains of business and technology.
Ecosystems of IoT devices are often organized in net-
works, using wireless technology and sharing access
infrastructure. These networks are used to monitor a
wide range of systems, from simple household activities
to fully-interconnected smart cities. In many usage sce-
narios, the IoT devices are resource-constrained. Thus,
energy scavenging is utilized to meet their expanding
longevity requirements. In this paper, we study the
local resource dynamics of IoT devices in an ecosystem,
i.e., a set of different IoT devices that co-exist in spa-
tiotemporal level to coordinate the use of available com-
mon resources for their individual goals. To this end,
we model an ecosystem of IoT devices as a time-varying
graph and provide a theoretical foundation for resource
distribution using Graph Theory. We show that simple
graph-theoretic metrics, such as, the clustering coeffi-
cient and degree distribution, can provide rich informa-
tion about the priority policy that is followed for the
distribution of resources among different IoT devices.
We take the case of micro grids; with some nodes having
harvesting potential and smart meters measuring the
current consumption/generation and being connected
to the control unit. We use this notion in our example
use-case, appropriating this to micro-grids with enough
harvested energy. Even one link per node can describe
an ecosystem as a connected component with more than
60% of its total energy needs covered. Additionally, the
nodes presenting harvesting potential are formed into
unipartite graphs of affiliation networks. Studying their
clustering coefficient we infer the priority policy that
ia applied when excess energy is shared within their
ecosystem.
I. Introduction
The Internet of Things (IoT) realizes the vision of
an interconnected future, where any tangible ‘object’, or
‘thing’, can be part of the Internet regardless of its loca-
tion. The recent advances in communication technology
enable dynamic and distributed systems furthering the
cause of the IoT. Examples of contemporary IoT-based
applications include monitoring of the indoor air quality
of buildings [1] or the cargo and structural health of
transportation means in logistics [2]. The IoT devices (e.g.,
sensors, actuators, and communication gateways) must
work seamlessly and unattended for long periods, given
978-1-4673-9944-9/18/$31.00
c 2018 IEEE
760
Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSITE DE SOUSSE. Downloaded on November 14,2022 at 15:03:41 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
the criticality of their specific functions. They also face
severe constraints regarding their energy sources, relying
mostly on (slow recharging) batteries as human interven-
tion is often not possible [1], [2]. In these settings, energy
harvesting, for example by means of renewable sources
(e.g., solar panels) or piezoelectric materials, can provide
a complementary source of energy. Existing approaches
focus on extending the active operation of a specific device
and supporting the overall network longevity [1].
We consider the case of ecosystems of IoT devices. We
use this term to describe a set of IoT devices with different
capabilities and energy requirements that co-exist in space
and time. Different devices might belong to different local
networks performing a different set of tasks. However, all
these IoT devices coordinate the use of available common
resources (e.g., energy or spectrum) for their individual
aims. A smart neighborhood is an example ecosystem of
IoT devices (e.g., smart buildings, smart traffic lights,
smart parking lots). The smart neighborhood covers its
energy needs by drawing power from the micro grid. It
also produces and shares energy locally and thus reduces
or offloads the costs. Each IoT device or network of devices
can employ its own policy regarding energy management,
as previously addressed in the literature. Once a device
is fully charged, it stops harvesting energy. However, such
an interconnected mesh of IoT devices has the potential
to collect excess energy and redistribute it inside the
ecosystem.
In this paper, we will characterize in an abstract way
how the excess of energy (and generally any resource)
is distributed between the devices of an IoT ecosystem
by employing Graph Theory. Since we target a micro
grid application as an example, we use the term ‘energy’
to also represent any other resources. For example, if,
instead of energy, computational burden is the resource
to be shared, then the heavy computational tasks can be
allocated to certain IoT devices in order for others, the
prioritized ones, to improve the longevity of their batteries.
Using graph-formations and graph-metrics, we can infer
which IoT devices carry the highest computational burden
inside an IoT ecosystem and under which prioritization
strategy. The above reveals the advantage of choosing
Graph Theory as a method of explaining interactions (e.g.,
energy or computations transfer) among members (e.g.,

Fig. 1: Abstraction level: ecosystem of IoT devices sharing
common resources. Study case: micro grid of consumers
and producers sharing excess energy.
IoT devices) of communities/graphs (e.g., micro-grid, IoT
ecosystem). Due to the high level of abstraction that
Graph Theory provides, we do not need to focus on a
particular resource. Instead, we can define unified models
of resource sharing that enclose several systems and types
of resources. In Fig. 1, we see the analogy of an ecosystem
of IoT devices seen as a graph and an actual micro grid
ecosystem.
The main contributions of this paper are the following:
(i) we present the analogy of an ecosystem of IoT devices
to a graph; (ii) we use graph metrics (clustering coefficient
and node degree) and graph formations (bipartite graphs
and giant components) to characterize the ecosystem re-
garding the policies used to prioritize different groups of
nodes when the allocation of excess energy occurs inside;
and (iii) we evaluate our theoretical study using fine-
grained consumption and generation data from an actual
ecosystem of households which uses smart meters.
II. Related Works
In the literature, ecosystems of IoT devices, mostly used
for sensing the ambient environment, are represented as
graphs to serve the following goals: (i) to organize the
distribution of resources (from batteries and renewable
sources of energy) inside the network [3]; (ii) to route the
data inside the network efficiently [4], [5]; (iii) to achieve
monitoring coverage with the least amount of active
sensor-devices [6], [7]; (iv) to optimize data gathering [8],
[9], and (v) to tolerate device-node failures [10]; All the
above approaches aim to reduce energy consumption in an
ecosystem, in order to prolong its lifetime. In [4], a routing
protocol, namely FAF-EBRM, is designed to define the
most efficient path for the sensed data to be delivered
from a source-node to any sink-node in a network. To
achieve this, before every ‘hop’, the link weights (defined
during the graph creation) and the energy needed for data
forwarding are checked. In [6] and [7], bipartite graphs are
designed according to the targets that are monitored by
761
Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSITE DE SOUSSE. Downloaded on November 14,2022 at 15:03:41 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
each set of devices in a network. Specifically in [6], devices
are grouped inside the ecosystem, forming disjoint sets.
Among these sets, only a few are monitoring continuously,
while the rest are duty cycled, and thus network lifetime
is extended. Within the same scope, in [5] the authors or-
ganize devices in cooperative groups to reduce the number
of transmitted messages and thus the traffic in the system.
In [8], traffic reduction inside the network is approached
from the scope of reducing the computational burden of
data compression. A ‘random walk’ algorithm for data
gathering is proposed in accordance with compressive
sensing. Tree-graphs are designed for data gathering in [9].
Loads of sensed data are balanced by using probabilistic
methods among the leaves of the tree networks. Using
simulation results, both [8] and [9] demonstrate that the
lifetime of their networks is extended. In [3], it is claimed
that if two devices can communicate directly (if their
transmit signals overlap), they should share the same
amount of resources, and thus be considered as one node.
After forming graphs under this scheme, they proceed on
resource allocation using the graph coloring method. The
impact of node failures in an ecosystem of device nodes is
analyzed in [10]. Mobile and stationary relays are proposed
to reconnect the segmented parts of faulty graphs and
enable data transfer. Carrying the principles of the above
studies, a generalized graph theoretic ecosystem of IoT
devices is modeled. By utilizing it we define how resources
are shared among devices.
III. System Model
Let us consider a graph G = (|v|, |e|) with |v| nodes
and |e| links, where v = {v1 , v2 , ..., vv } are the nodes
and e = {e1 , e2 , ..., ee } are the links. Additionally, let us
assume an ecosystem including IoT devices which coexist
spatiotemporally. The devices exchange messages through
controllers to distribute the excess energy they harvest in
the ecosystem, assuming that power transmission among
them is feasible. In this work, we do not go into the
specifics of energy (or resource) distribution. Instead, we
only focus on the modeling of such systems in general with
graphs and assume it is feasible to share resources once the
solutions to the abstract sharing problems are found.
The ecosystem can be considered as a time-varying
graph. The nodes of this graph are the entities related
to the energy transfer process, i.e., controllers and IoT de-
vices. The IoT devices that produce excess energy during
a timespan are called provider (or producer) nodes and the
rest are the receiver (or consumer) nodes, which are energy
deficient. A device can be either a provider or a receiver at
different timespans. A graph link between a provider and
a receiver denotes the transfer of excess energy between
these two nodes. A graph link between a provider/receiver
and a controller denotes a communication link for message
exchange purposes. The existence and formation of the
links depend on the way the excess energy is shared
inside the ecosystem. This is illustrated using real data
 we defined the deficiency and excess of energy for every
household through this data. To achieve convergence and
hence the stability of energy allocation, we smoothed the
daily (and hourly) differences in energy by averaging the
measurements over predefined weekly time intervals. Our
final dataset provides an example case of an IoT device
ecosystem, where each household optimizes independently
the balance between deficiency and excess of energy. Every
household was modeled as a graph node, either provider or
(a) Week 47 (b) Week 48 receiver at any time interval, according to the total balance
of energy generation and consumption as derived from the
Fig. 2: Nodes changing roles in a time-varying graph aggregated smart meter readings. Fig. 1 depicts visually
representing a micro grid. an abstract representation of the studied system.

V. Graph metrics for evaluation and results

in Fig. 2, where we observe that the links connecting
different nodes of the graph vary between two consecutive A. Node Degrees
timespans (weeks), as the energy transfer relations change The degree of a node, vi , dvi , is the number of links that
from time to time among the provider and receiver nodes. connect vi with other nodes [12], [13]. We consider only
Note that in our model there are no self-loops because self- time-varying graphs that contain links depending on the
transferring of the excess energy has no physical meaning. flow of resources (transferred energy in our case study),
Under the aforementioned assumptions, we proceed in the which occurs between providers and receivers. In a time-
following sections to study and characterize the energy varying graph and for a given time interval T , the quantity
allocation behavior in an ecosystem of IoT devices using dTvi = x denotes that if i is a deficient device (node), then
graph-theoretic approaches. i accepted excess of energy from x providers. If i is a
IV. Evaluation Model provider, then i transfers excess of energy to x deficient
nodes. If vi is a deficient node and x = 0, then the excess
The energy transactions in our evaluation model occur energy was depleted before it could be shared to vi .
in one of the three ways: (i) FIFO, prioritizing from the
In Fig. 3, we present the degree distribution for 263
highest deficient nodes to the lowest; (ii) FIFO, prioritizing
nodes without energy harvesting potential when prior-
from the lowest deficient nodes to the highest; and (iii)
itizing randomly, for low, or for high deficiency. The
randomly. We opted to use a real-world case for our
impact of prioritization is reflected on the degree of the
evaluation model rather than relying on synthetic datasets
nodes that received the excess energy. High degree-values
because of the following two reasons: (a) our model illus-
imply that the corresponding nodes received energy from
trates actual scenarios of micro grids, where the system
many providers and low degree-values imply the opposite.
energy is dynamic, measured using smart meters, and
We note that the policies designed to prioritize the low-
communicated over an IoT ecosystem; and (b) our model
deficient nodes (red) do not present extremities regarding
possesses a large scale of data over a long period of time.
degree distribution. This is because the energy needs of
We utilize the information from the Dataport database,
the prioritized nodes are easily covered and, as a result,
the world’s largest source of disaggregated customer en-
many nodes received excess energy. On the other hand, the
ergy data [11]. We selected the Pecan Street dataset,
priority policies that help the highly-deficient nodes (blue)
a neighborhood of smart households in Austin, Texas,
manage to cover the needs of a relatively small number of
USA. This is a real-world case of a highly-scalable system,
them. Thus, only a few nodes with resource constraints
where Internet-enabled smart meters sense the consump-
attract a higher number of links. For example, in week
tion of household appliances and energy harvesters. The
42, prioritizing the highly deficient nodes covers only four
smart meters provide measurements at high frequencies
of them with a degree-range of [30, 5]. Prioritizing the
– one reading every few minutes up to several readings
low deficient nodes covers over 40 nodes, which present
per minute. The dataset we selected comprises of 443
a degree-range of [5, 1] (cf. the zoomed part of week 42 in
households, out of which 180 generate energy using solar
Fig. 3). The random-selection service policy results (green)
panels1 . The availability of excess energy is not always
lie in between the two aforementioned policies.
guaranteed. We used the aggregated consumption and
We conclude that by computing the degree distribution
generation data (in kW) from the smart meters of all the
of the nodes that receive excess energy in an ecosystem of
households in the ecosystem during one year, discarding
IoT devices, and by comparing the results with those of
households with data of less than 300 days. Further,
a random priority policy, we can infer that the ecosystem
1 the datasets we queried are available at https://dataport.cloud/ prioritizes a certain type of nodes (e.g., the high or the
data/database of https://dataport.pecanstreet.org low deficient ones).

762
Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSITE DE SOUSSE. Downloaded on November 14,2022 at 15:03:41 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.

Fig. 3: Weekly degree distribution for different energy
sharing priority policies, from week 40 (a) to week 43 (d).
B. Giant Components
A connected component in a graph is a group of nodes
in which it is possible to go from any node to any other
node of the same group by using the group links. A
Giant Component (GC) is a connected component that
contains the majority of graph nodes in its corresponding
graph [12], [14], [13]. Assuming that the graph expands
by involving more nodes and links randomly, the GC
grows rapidly, until the whole graph has become one GC.
This occurs because, for every new node or link that is
added, the possibility of connecting with the existing GC is
higher than with any other non-GC graph component. The
GC, being the majority leader regarding nodes, attracts
new nodes/links with higher probability than any other
connected component in the graph.
In our time-varying graph representation of ecosystems,
the formation and size of a GC relate to the ratios of
excess energy over deficit for a number of providers and
receivers. When these ratios are high, the graph is highly-
connected and thus, a GC can be observed. We isolate
the 180 nodes of our dataset that can harvest energy.
Every week (our time interval), these nodes can be ei-
ther providers or receivers, depending on their available
energy. We apply random energy sharing to simulate the
creation of connected components. In Fig. 4, we relate the
number of nodes of the largest connected component with
the number of links in the resulting graph. We observe
that the existence of a GC is affected strongly by the
number of links and in particular, by the fact that a link
representing energy transfer cannot exist between nodes of
the same type (e.g., two energy providers). Thus, although
the energy transfer is random, the GC does not expand
randomly, but according to the type of nodes and the
amount of excess energy. When the ratio of links over the
total number of nodes is below 0.7, the nodes of the largest
connected component are less than 30% of the total nodes
of the graph. There is no GC, but rather several small
connected components. On the other hand, for higher link-
per-node values, GCs are formed. When these values are
over 0.95, the study case ecosystem is fully-connected.
763
Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSITE DE SOUSSE. Downloaded on November 14,2022 at 15:03:41 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
Fig. 4: Ratios of: (i) nodes of the largest connected com-
ponent over total nodes (blue), (ii) nodes with more than
60% of their needs covered over total number of deficient
nodes (red), and (iii) links per node (black).
Fig. 5: Links per node (x-axis) against the following: (i)
nodes of the largest connected component over total nodes
(blue) and (ii) deficient nodes with more than 60% of their
needs covered over total number of nodes in need of energy
(red).
This is attributed to the specific nature of link creation
(i.e., ‘resource providers → receivers’). Other graph-types
require higher link-per-node values to form a GC [12].
Hence, we conclude that in an ecosystem of IoT devices
with low energy requirements and large amounts of har-
vested energy, a ratio of one link per node is sufficient to
connect the resulting graph into a GC and thus, cover
adequately the needs of deficient nodes, even if excess
energy is transferred randomly.
Deficiency coverage is strongly related to an increase
in the fraction of links in the graph. The effect of link
creation in the formation of a GC and energy sharing
is depicted in Fig. 5. Every deficient node is covered, at
least over 60%, when the graph is connected in one GC.
We arbitrarily chose 60% as a coverage percentage which
guarantees that the deficient node is able to maintain its
basic functionalities (e.g., sensing, computing).
We conclude that the ratio of nodes of the connected
component over the total nodes grows exponentially when
increasing the number of links in the graph. Furthermore,
the fraction of nodes that are covered grows exponentially
when increasing the size of the largest connected com-
ponent, until this becomes a GC. After this point, the
GC increases rapidly to connect the whole graph, covering
adequately the needs of every deficient node.
C. Clustering coefficient
In a time-varying graph, it is important to know its level
of completeness when measuring robustness against node
failures. An undirected graph is characterized complete (or
full-mesh) when all the possible links that can be created
between the nodes exist. The completeness of a graph
is measured by defining the individual completeness of
each node inside it [13]. The level of completeness for (a) High deficiency concept (b) Low deficiency concept
a node vi of a graph G = (|v|, |e|) is the Clustering
Coefficient, denoted as CCvi . Assuming a node vi of a Fig. 6: Comparison of clustering coefficient for different
graph has n neighbors of degree higher than one (i.e., priority policies in energy sharing.
nodes directly connected with vi , which are connected
also to other nodes), CCvi is defined as the ratio of the TABLE I: Average clustering coefficient of nodes produc-
number of links connecting the n neighbors, |e(n) |, over ing excess energy and deficient ones from Fig. 6.
the total number of possible links that could connect the High Deficiency Low Deficiency
n neighbors, n(n − 1)/2 [13]: CCC 0.5 0.778
CCP 1 0.778
2|e(n) |
CCvi = ∈ [0, 1]. (1)
n(n − 1) subgraphs around the few deficit nodes of high degree;
while other deficit nodes that remain uncovered are not
To measure the CCG of the whole graph G, one must
considered for averaging clustering coefficients of Eq. (1).
consider all the individual clustering P coefficients of its
|v| In contrast, low-deficient node priority policies (e.g., the
nodes. Thus, for G = (|v|, |e|), CCG = i=1 CCvi . If the
ones presented in Fig. 6b) augment the diversity of nodes
result is |v|, the whole graph is complete. A high CCG
receiving energy. Thus, there are no nodes of high degree
implies that the graph maintains its functionality even
because of the low needs of the nodes that are served. The
after disconnecting several nodes because the remaining
degrees of the energy providers are increased as they can
nodes are able to operate over the available links.
cover the needs of a higher number of deficient nodes and
Considering our case study ecosystem, let the graph
form links with them, sharing their excess of energy more
represent energy allocation to nodes using different pri-
efficiently. We evaluated the insights provided by the case
ority policies. We use the average clustering coeffi-
described in Fig. 6 using our study case ecosystem. As
cient of provider and receiver nodes, defined as CCP
confirmed by Fig. 7, turning from a policy that prioritizes
and CCC respectively. Through this, we can gain in-
the high-deficient nodes (blue) to a policy prioritizing the
sights on the priority policies, as explained below. As-
low-deficient ones (red), the CCC increases and the CCP
sume a time-varying graph (simplified) of excess energy
decreases.
providers P ={p1 , p2 , p3 } with their individual excess
being Ee ={Ee1 , Ee2 , Ee3 }, deficient nodes C ={c1 , c2 , c3 } D. Affiliation networks
with their individual deficiency being Ed ={Ed1 , Ed2 , Ed3 },
Nodes sharing a similar characteristic can be grouped
and one controller, where the following conditions are met:
into a complete graph and become part of a larger network,
3
X called affiliation network [8], [7]. Two graphs co-exist
Ed1 > Ee3 > Ee2 > Ed2 > Ee1 > Ed3 and Ed1 > Eep . in an affiliation network: the first is a bipartite graph,
p=1
describing actions between pairs of nodes and the second is
Under a simple energy allocation strategy, we assume the
providers transfer energy in the order p1 , p2 , p3 , which is
arbitrary. One policy that prioritizes the highly deficient
nodes is depicted in Fig. 6a. Another policy aiming at
the low deficient ones is depicted in Fig. 6b. The black
links in Fig. 6 denote the connection with the controller
while the red links denote energy transfer from providers
to deficient nodes. The clustering coefficient results for the
case of Fig. 6 are summarized in Table I. We observe that
the policies prioritizing the highly-deficient nodes achieve
higher values of CCP and lower values of CCC compared
to the ones prioritizing the low-deficient nodes. This can be
explained by the differences in degree distribution, which Fig. 7: Comparison of weekly Clustering Coefficient of
can be observed in Fig. 3. We conclude that by prioritizing producers and consumers in the micro grid ecosystem, for
high-deficient nodes, the energy providers form complete different consumer priority policies.

764
Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSITE DE SOUSSE. Downloaded on November 14,2022 at 15:03:41 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.

Fig. 8: The affiliation network created by the deficit nodes
{c1, c2, c3}, which receive energy by the providers {a...h}.
a unipartite graph, grouping nodes that perform the same
actions [14]. An ecosystem of IoT devices can be mod-
eled using affiliation networks. A link between two nodes
describes the resource flow from a provider to a receiver
(or communication with the controller), i.e., forming the
bipartite graph. However, graph links can also be used to
link two providers to signify their affiliation in covering the
energy needs of the same node (or communicating with
the same controller), i.e., forming the unipartite graph.
We recall that one deficient node can receive energy from
multiple providers, especially when it is highly-deficient.
The ‘bipartite → unipartite’ representation of an IoT
device ecosystem with three energy-receiving nodes and
eight providers is depicted in Fig. 8. Assuming all the
energy providers cover the same deficient nodes, their
resulting unipartite graph would be complete, because
CC = 1 [14]. To illustrate this, we consider the three
unipartite subgraphs of Fig. 8, namely Gc1 , Gc2 , and Gc3 .
These subgraphs are observed when focusing only on the
bipartite subgraphs created by the energy providers that
link with the same deficient node (c1, c2, or c3). However,
the unipartite graph that is created by the union of these
three subgraphs, GC = Gc1 ∪ Gc2 ∪ Gc3 , has a lower
clustering coefficient. This is because the graph is created
by groups of energy providers covering different deficient
nodes. Thus, they are affiliated for different reasons or
actions.
Theorem 1 As the number of nodes that receive energy
increases in a bipartite graph (e.g., following a priority
policy focused on the low-deficient) the corresponding uni-
partite graph has lower clustering coefficient.
Proof Without loss of generality, consider an affiliation
network similar to the one of Fig. 8, but with two deficient
nodes, c1 and c2 , served by a group P of excess energy
providers. Covering the energy needs of a certain node is
an action (or service); a fraction of providers, P f 1 ∈ P ,
serves node c1 , another fraction, P f 2 ∈ P , serves node c2 ,
and the rest, P − P f 1 − P f 2 , serve both c1 and c2 . The
total clustering coefficient, CCGC , of the unipartite graph
of the affiliation network, GC = Gc1 ∪ Gc2 , depends on
the individual clustering coefficient of every provider node
765
Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSITE DE SOUSSE. Downloaded on November 14,2022 at 15:03:41 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
(a) High Deficiency (b) Low Deficiency
Fig. 9: Provider unipartite graphs for Week 42 according
to different affiliation networks.
as defined in Eq. (1). For a node vi ∈ P the following
cases are possible: (i) vi serves c1 → CCvi = 1, (ii) vi
serves c2 → CCvi = 1, and (iii) vi serves c1 and c2 →
CCvi ≤ 1. The first two cases are obvious due to the nature
of affiliation networks [14]. For the third case, CCvi = 1
only if P f 1 = P f 2 = ∅, which is not the case. As it
is implied by the above, CCGC depends on Gc1 ∩ Gc2 .
The higher the providers-intersection (i.e., the number of
common provider nodes sending excess energy both to c1
and c2 ), the higher the total clustering coefficient of the
corresponding unipartite graph. This can be extended for
a number of providers sharing their excess energy with a
number of deficient nodes. Thus, assuming a unipartite
graph GC = Gc1 ∪ Gc2 ∪ · · · ∪ Gcn , for P energy providers
sharing excess with N ={c1 , c2 , ..., cn } deficient nodes,
CCGC = 1 only if Gc1 ∩ Gc2 ∩ · · · ∩ Gcn = P . The value
of CCGC decreases with any decrease of the intersection
result (i.e., different nodes receive excess energy).
We argue that the difference in the values of clustering
coefficient between the unipartite graphs of two priori-
tization strategies is analogous to the difference in the
number of nodes that receive energy in each of the two
strategies. This is observed in Fig. 9, where we present the
unipartite graph created by the providers of our dataset
during a certain timespan (namely, Week 42). The lowest
value of clustering coefficient is seen in the unipartite
graph of Fig. 9b, where we observe the highest number of
low-degree nodes (light green), i.e., many deficient nodes
are covered. The highest value of clustering coefficient is
observed in the graph of affiliated energy providers sharing
their excess with high deficient nodes (cf. Fig. 9a). We
observe in Fig. 10 that when the difference in the number
of those who received energy is small between the policies
(e.g., Week 41), so is the difference in the clustering
coefficient results in the provider-unipartite graph.
VI. Discussion
Ecosystems of IoT devices with resource sharing capa-
bilities can be modeled as time-varying graphs. Within this
perspective, two important attributes of the ecosystem can
be derived, namely the strategy that is followed in terms
of resource sharing and the balance between deficiency
and excess of available resources. In the context of this

Fig. 10: Average clustering coefficient of the unipartite
graphs (left). Number of deficient nodes that received
energy (right).
work, although we considered one type of network that has
energy harvesting and sharing capability (micro grid), our
idea can be used in various other resource sharing ecosys-
tems, without connecting the term ‘resources’ strictly with
the energy. In the use case of this paper, the energy sharing
strategy is revealed by the node degree distribution (cf.
Fig. 3) and the clustering coefficient (cf. Fig. 6, Fig. 7,
Fig. 10) with which we can see the groups of nodes that
are prioritized for receiving energy inside a network. The
energy balance is brought into the picture by our study on
the existence of Giant Components, as connected graphs
tend to present high ratios of excess energy over deficiency
(cf. Fig. 4, Fig. 5). Further, creating graphs of affiliated
energy providers allows to relate groups inside a network
regarding sharing with common deficient nodes and, as
a result, offers a broader view on the internal energy
dynamics of an ecosystem of IoT devices (cf. Fig. 8, Fig. 9).
Hitherto, published literature on graph-theoretic ap-
proaches for IoT networks utilize graph links for modeling
communication links between nodes, with the aim of data
transfer [4], [9], [8]. We provided a new look at this
topic, using graph links for modeling additionally the
resource exchange among different nodes (e.g., IoT de-
vices or whole households operating as energy “islands”).
Communication-based approaches consider mostly graphs
of static-in-time links, signifying an always-present com-
munication link if two devices are in (wireless) range and
transmit power permits so [3], [10], [5]. We use time-
varying graphs where new links are created between nodes
at each time interval according to an agreed resource
sharing policy among the actors of the ecosystem. This
approach allows us to study the ecosystem dynamics for
long periods and use historical observations to characterize
the distribution of energy within it. Furthermore, bipartite
graphs are used in the literature to relate (monitoring) sen-
sor devices (source nodes) to their corresponding groups of
target nodes [6], [7]. Here, source nodes and target nodes
change dynamically, according to the energy balance of ev-
ery node. Thus, the corresponding time-varying unipartite
graphs of affiliated energy providers (not considered in the
literature until now) are used to characterize the resource
sharing inside an ecosystem of IoT devices.
766
Authorized licensed use limited to: UNIVERSITE DE SOUSSE. Downloaded on November 14,2022 at 15:03:41 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
VII. Conclusions
Ecosystems of IoT devices are principal components for
interconnected societies. Actors/nodes of such ecosystems
coexisting in space and time can cooperate/link to build
ephemeral/time-varying relationships in order to achieve
a particular goal, e.g., sustainability. We took the example
of micro grids, where IoT devices measure the energy
consumption/generation of each household and the excess
energy is bartered among them. Our work reveals some
interesting attributes of the ecosystems of IoT devices
when looked carefully through the lens of Graph Theory.
We showed how to model such ecosystems as time-
varying graphs and affiliation networks. We then related
important graph metrics, such as, degree, clustering coef-
ficient to define the balance between excess/deficiency of
energy inside these ecosystems and to infer the policy that
is used for energy sharing. The use of real-world data offers
additional validation for our theoretical constructs. We
emphasize that this was only an example case of applying
Graph Theory for energy sharing in ecosystems of IoT
devices. Our approach is generic and can be applied to
a multitude of resources and ecosystems.
Acknowledgements
SCOTT http://www.scott-project.eu has received fund-
ing from the Electronic Component Systems for Euro-
pean Leadership Joint Undertaking, grant agreement No
737422. This joint undertaking is supported from the EU
Horizon 2020 research and innovation program and Aus-
tria, Spain, Finland, Ireland, Sweden, Germany, Poland,
Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium, Norway.
References
[1] F. Touati et al., “Feasibility of air quality monitoring systems
based on environmental energy harvesting,” May 2015.
[2] M. Becker et al., “Logistic applications with wireless sensor
networks,” June 2010.
[3] M. Hajiaghayi et al., “Efficient and practical resource block
allocation for lte-based d2d network via graph coloring,” August
2013.
[4] D. Zhang et al., “An energy-balanced routing method based
on forward-aware factor for wireless sensor networks,” February
2014.
[5] M. Garcia et al., “Saving energy and improving communications
using cooperative group-based wireless sensor networks,” Au-
gust 2011.
[6] M. Cardei and D.-Z. Du, “Improving wireless sensor network
lifetime through power aware organization,” May 2005.
[7] H. Rowaihy et al., “Measurement and analysis of online social
networks,” May 2007.
[8] H. Zheng et al., “Data gathering with compressive sensing in
wireless sensor networks: A random walk based approach,”
January 2015.
[9] J. S. He et al., “Constructing load-balanced data aggregation
trees in probabilistic wireless sensor networks,” July 2014.
[10] M. Younis et al., “Topology management techniques for tolerat-
ing node failures in wireless sensor networks: A survey,” January
2014.
[11] O. Parson et al., “Dataport and nilmtk: A building data set
designed for non-intrusive load monitoring,” December 2015.
[12] R. Kumar, J. Novak, and A. Tomkins, “Structure and evolution
of online social networks,” August 2006.
[13] A. Mislove et al., “Measurement and analysis of online social
networks,” October 2007.
[14] M. E. J. Newman, D. J. Watts, and S. H. Strogatz, “Random
graph models of social networks,” February 2002.