Anirach Mingkhwan

Dynamic service composition in home appliance networks

The proliferation of networked appliances and the complex functions they provide make it ever harder for a specialist, let alone an ordinary home user, to configure them to provide a given service. The use of flexible middleware architectures, combined with application level services will allow for better exploitation of these features both for the benefit of performance and simplicity. For example, a TV, DVD player and radio all have output speakers and are capable of producing sound, however there is no common framework to harness this functionality. In this paper we address this issue and propose a home network architecture that interconnects home appliances and their associated services using descriptive ontologies to guide the composition process itself. In this network, home appliances are interconnected using a Service Integration Controller (SIC), which discovers and dynamically composes the services they provide and efficiently coordinates the communications between all services independent of the protocol being used. The prototype we implemented uses a home entertainment system as a case study and shows that this framework fulfils the requirements of the system design.

A semantic framework for self-adaptive networked appliances

User demands and technological advances are moving us closer to the pervasive computing vision. The home of the future includes networked appliances that publish the functions they offer as intelligent middleware services providing flexible, intuitive and zero-maintenance mechanisms for dynamic service composition, deployment, extensibility, management and usage. Whilst much work exists relating to service-oriented frameworks, this typically relies on attribute-based service matching and discovery, which is inherently restrictive since no universally agreed service description or taxonomy is available to describe services homogeneously. Device manufacturers inadvertently use different vocabularies to describe services and therefore ambiguities between terms are likely. In this paper we address these issues and describe our networked appliance service utilisation framework (NASUF), which illustrates how services offered by networked appliances can be semantically composed to extend device capabilities and perform a plethora of data adaptation functions to automatically resolve any composition conflicts that may occur. We have developed a prototype to test NASUF and our findings show that the framework can dynamically compose services provided by networked appliances in peer-to-peer networks.

Implicit functionality: dynamic services composition for home networked appliances

The proliferation of networked appliances and the increased complexity associated with their configuration requires considerable effort from specialists and home users alike. Many of the common applications they offer and the sophisticated functions they support could be better utilised to increase performance and ensure simplicity. For example a TV, DVD player and radio have all got output speakers and they are capable of producing sound, but there is no common framework to harness these functionalities. In this paper we propose a framework that enables implicit functionalities in a home appliances network. In this network, home appliances are structured around a central service integration controller (SIC), which integrates the sen ices they offer and coordinates the communications between all service-enabled appliances, independent of the protocol type being used. Implicit functionalities can be formed based on the SICs ability to discover and dynamically compose services to form specific configurations, which are only limited by the users imagination. The prototype we implemented uses a home entertainment theatre system as a case study and shows that this framework not only fulfils the requirements of the paper but also gives rise to a number of issues such as the service-enabled appliance architecture and macro-scale services composition and its security.

DiSUS: Mobile Ad Hoc Network Unstructured Services

Mobile devices are situated in an environment that consists of infrastructure and ad hoc networks. Unlike infrastructure networks, ad hoc networks are highly dynamic, wireless and do not have any centralised administration. These two environments accommodate two types of services: one type is registered and discovered using toolsets found within structured networks, e.g., JINI and UDDI, and the other type of service is situated within a network that has no structure, as in P2P. Our work highlights a key solution for providing unstructured services in a mobile ad hoc environment. This paper shows how mobile ad hoc systems can construct and semantically discover unstructured services in their environment. We describe the Distributed Semantic Unstructured Services (DiSUS) framework; the protocols used and describe the functionality of the prototype system we have developed.

Multi hop communication in global wireless framework

Mobile ad-hoc networks are infrastructure-free highly dynamic wireless networks, where central administration or configuration by the user is impractical. This paper highlights the questions of allowing all the wireless ad hoc devices to use the same network address in a global wireless framework. It presents the paradigm of using auto-assigned, private non-internet-routable IP addresses as the basis to provide anytime, anywhere services to nomadic end users in the information space. It follows on from our work on integrating personal mobility services architectures and interoperating wireless networked appliances. Providing a multi-hop communication over a series of users devices each acting as a multi-port MAC bridge constructs an interoperable, interworking domain allowing applications to run seamlessly in the upper layers. We discuss the case of the IEEE 802.11 protocol specification where we present working scenarios and protocols used to initialise and maintain the operation of its multi-hop communications. It is an attempt to provide a better range of services in an interoperable heterogeneous domain to offering the services from both the network side and the local environment by means of multi-hop ad-hoc MAC bridges.

IPMSA: integrated personal mobility services architecture

Forthcoming network computing systems are expected to provide a wide variety of services to personal mobility users anywhere anytime in the world. Personal mobility services require an advanced architecture that integrates support protocols, mechanisms and special functionality for the dynamic reconfiguration of applications and services available in new environments when users change from one terminal to another. This paper introduces an architecture, integrated personal mobility services architecture (IPMSA), that enhances personal mobility by providing access to integrated structured and unstructured services wherever they are available in a seamless manner.

The Flexible Service Composition Framework for Networked Appliances

Developments in information technology and networking are rapidly driving the enhancement of networked appliances in the home environment. Users can request services from networked appliances via the home network framework and makes it possible to provide new concomitant capability by composing a virtual appliance. However, due to the vast number of home networked appliances and their complicated services, such composition can prove challenging for the non-technical home user. In this paper, we present the components of our framework for providing automatic service composition in networked appliances that uses both centralized and decentralized mechanisms the hardware implementation details for the framework, and demonstrate our hardware initial implementation.

Global wireless framework: one world wireless devices

We present the paradigm of using autoassigned predefined nonInternet routable IP addresses with mobile devices (global wireless framework) as the basis to provide services to nomadic end users in information spaces. As an example of how global wireless IP can be constructed as a base of services providing for personal mobility, we show working scenarios and protocols that are used to initialize the network. We also show how this global wireless IP can be integrated with structured networks. We provide a different perspective of using IP addresses with mobile devices in a personal area network and offers simultaneously services from both the infrastructure network side and ad hoc environment.

Composition Planning for Networked Appliances

Today, the networked appliances are evolving toward service-enabled networked appliances by service oriented computing. They can be advertising the functionality of devices in the terms of services that can be offer to the network. The user and other networked appliances would become possible to creating a new virtual appliance by composite those services. In this paper, we present the service score calculated mechanism for planner process which use to select the best service for composition in our framework.Today, the networked appliances are evolving toward service-enabled networked appliances by service oriented computing. They can be advertising the functionality of devices in the terms of services that can be offer to the network. The user and other networked appliances would become possible to creating a new virtual appliance by composite those services. In this paper, we present the service score calculated mechanism for planner process which use to select the best service for composition in our framework.

BlueBridge: A Wireless Interworking Architecture for the Ubiquitous Home

The plethora of networked multimedia services and ubiquitous devices has ultimately changed the objective of networking to one that strives in enabling the provision and interaction of networked services. It is therefore necessary especially in the home environment to consider the enhancement of the way services are provided to the end user. To be able to realise such a vision, a common interworking layer needs to be adopted. This allows all the devices to use the same IP addressing domain and therefore be considered as operating on one network. That would ultimately provide a common networking layer for the applications. In doing so, the authors would enable services to interact seamlessly without the needs of provision for roaming and handover functionalities. This paper presents BlueBridge, a solution that provides seamless wireless interworking in the lower layers. The detail of the design and implementation and provide results that prove the enhanced capabilities of its functionality.