Active Computing Toward 5G Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) contains enormous computing resources. How to fully and efficiently use computing power is a very important research issue. This article proposes an active computing (AC) concept toward IoT. AC achieves the computing power integration by the means of actively pulling computing tasks; then a network is established with the provisioning of computing power as the core. Not limited to the emerging cloud computing and edge computing, AC can dig the fragmented computing power on the embedded devices and on the stand-alone commodity server, even if the mode of rich client and thin server is acceptable. Considering the characteristics of AC and compatibility with existing protocol stacks, a comprehensive architecture is given. The novel architecture can adapt to both wireless and wire networks that need integration of computing power. After comparing with the related computing mode through the validating experiment, this article also examines potential research and addresses some opportunities.