Privacy-Aware Fuzzy Range Query Processing Over Distributed Edge Devices

Range query processing is a common edge computing and service in the Internet of things, which can extract user-interest information from distributed edge devices. How to design lightweight privacy-preserving range query processing methods remains a challenging task. Existing secure range query approaches suffer from both high communication cost and long response time, which makes them unsuitable for edge computing over resource-constrained edge devices. In this article, we propose two privacy-aware fuzzy query processing schemes based on fuzzy theory. Linguistic range variables, fuzzy overlap information, and its recovery mechanism are introduced. In addition, two distributed privacy-aware fuzzy range query processing algorithms are devised. Our approaches not only serve for privacy protection, but also aim to provide other optimal performances in terms of reliability, energy efficiency, and real-time response. Theoretical analysis and experimental evaluations based on real-world datasets validated our motivation.