LEGO-Motif: Enhancing IoT Topology Robustness With Evolutionary Motif-Based Generation
Abstract
The robust network topology of the Internet of Things (IoT) system facilitates uninterrupted service provisioning when encountering device failures. Traditional topology optimization strategies use link-level algorithms to design robust network topologies for IoT device deployment, ensuring network resilience against failures. These algorithms struggle to provide a robust topology for large-scale networks due to the high complexity and computational cost of optimizing each link individually. To overcome this limitation, we introduceLEGO-Motif, a motif-based IoT topology generation algorithm inspired by preferential attachment (PA) and evolutionary theory. By sequentially integrating network motifs, similar to assembling LEGO bricks, the algorithm efficiently enhances topology robustness while reducing computational overhead. Specifically, we propose a novel metric based on motif density to measure topology robustness; then, guided by this metric, we design a topology generation algorithm that ensures optimal topology with high robustness against cyberattacks throughout its growth, inspired by an evolutionary neural network framework. The LEGO-Motif algorithm introduces novel recombination, PA-based mutation, and pruning operators to enhance optimization performance and reduce running-time costs. Comprehensive case studies and evaluations show that LEGO-Motif outperforms current topology optimization algorithms, achieving more robust network topologies with reduced running time, which offers a promising optimal solution for deploying the IoT topology.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Software-Defined Networks and 5G
Advanced Optical Network Technologies
IoT and Edge/Fog Computing
Publication details
- Journal / source
- IEEE Transactions on Systems Man and Cybernetics Systems
- Publisher
- Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
- Volume
- 56
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 1630–1643
- Publication date
- 12 January 2026