Simon Mayer

Moving Application Logic from the Firmware to the Cloud: Towards the Thin Server Architecture for the Internet of Things

Unlike traditional networked embedded systems, the Internet of Things interconnects heterogeneous devices from various manufacturers with diverse functionalities. To foster the emergence of novel applications, this vast infrastructure requires a common application layer. As a single global standard for all device types and application domains is impracticable, we propose an architecture where the infrastructure is agnostic of applications and application development is fully decoupled from the embedded domain. In our design, the application logic of devices is running on application servers, while thin servers embedded into devices export only their elementary functionality using REST resources. In this paper, we present our design goals and preliminary results of this approach, featuring the Californium (Cf) CoAP framework.

An extensible discovery service for smart things

We present DiscoWoT, a semantic discovery service for Web-enabled smart things. The service is based on the application of multiple Discovery Strategies to a Web resources representation, where arbitrary users can create and update strategies at runtime using DiscoWoTs RESTful interface. Its goal is to provide a future-proof mechanism for enabling both, human users and machines, to semantically discover functionality provided by Web-enabled devices. Ultimately, it aims to allow for the facilitated discovery, selection, and utilization of smart things. DiscoWoT incorporates a transparent mechanism for deferring resource discovery to external handlers and can thus interact with other services within discovery service federations. It may be accessed by arbitrary users for ad hoc discovery of functionality offered by Web resources or incorporated into infrastructures for Web-enabled smart things.

Searching in a web-based infrastructure for smart things

Given the expected high number of accessible digitally augmented devices and their communication requirements, this paper presents our work on creating a Web-based infrastructure for smart things to facilitate the integration, look-up, and interaction with such devices for human users and machines. To exploit the locality of interactions with and between smart things, the proposed infrastructure treats the location of a smart thing as its main property and is therefore structured hierarchically according to logical place identifiers. We discuss the infrastructures look-up mechanism that leverages Web patterns to foster scalability and load balancing and features an advanced caching mechanism that greatly reduces the response time and number of exchanged messages. These properties are demonstrated in an evaluation in a simulated smart environment.

Configuration of smart environments made simple: Combining visual modeling with semantic metadata and reasoning

We present an approach that combines semantic metadata and reasoning with a visual modeling tool to enable the goal-driven configuration of smart environments for end users. In contrast to process-driven systems where service mashups are statically defined, this approach makes use of embedded semantic API descriptions to dynamically create mashups that fulfill the users goal. The main advantage of the presented system is its high degree of flexibility, as service mashups can adapt to dynamic environments and are fault-tolerant with respect to individual services becoming unavailable. To support end users in expressing their goals, we integrated a visual programming tool with our system. This tool enables users to model the desired state of their smart environment graphically and thus hides the technicalities of the underlying semantics and the reasoning. Possible applications of the presented system include the configuration of smart homes to increase individual well-being, and reconfigurations of smart environments, for instance in the industrial automation or healthcare domains.

Smart Configuration of Smart Environments

One of the central research challenges in the Internet of Things and Ubiquitous Computing domains is how users can be enabled to “program” their personal and industrial smart environments by combining services that are provided by devices around them. We present a service composition system that enables the goal-driven configuration of smart environments for end users by combining semantic metadata and reasoning with a visual modeling tool. In contrast to process-driven approaches where service mashups are statically defined, we make use of embedded semantic API descriptions to dynamically create mashups that fulfill the users goal. The main advantage of our system is its high degree of flexibility, as service mashups can adapt to dynamic environments and are fault-tolerant with respect to individual services becoming unavailable. To support users in expressing their goals, we integrated a visual programming tool with our system that allows to model the desired state of a smart environment graphically, thereby hiding the technicalities of the underlying semantics. Possible applications of the presented system include the management of smart homes to increase individual well-being, and reconfigurations of smart environments, for instance in the industrial automation or healthcare domains.

User interfaces for smart things -- A generative approach with semantic interaction descriptions

With ever more everyday objects becoming “smart” due to embedded processors and communication capabilities, the provisioning of intuitive user interfaces to control smart things is quickly gaining importance. We present a model-based interface description scheme that enables automatic, modality-independent user interface generation. User interface description languages based on our approach carry enough information to suggest intuitive interfaces while still being easily producible for developers. This is enabled by describing the atomic interactive components of a device and capturing the semantics of interactions with the device. We propose a taxonomy of abstract sensing and actuation primitives and present a smartphone application that can act as a ubiquitous device controller. An evaluation of the mobile application in a laboratory setup, home environments, and an educational setting as well as the results of a user study highlight the accessibility of the proposed scheme for application developers and its suitability for controlling smart devices.

Cloudthink: a scalable secure platform for mirroring transportation systems in the cloud

AbstractWe present a novel approach to developing a vehicle communication platform consisting of a low-cost, open-source hardware for moving vehicle data to a secure server, a Web Application Programming Interface (API) for the provision of third-party services, and an intuitive user dashboard for access control and service distribution. The CloudThink infrastructure promotes the commoditization of vehicle telematics data by facilitating easier, flexible, and more secure access. It enables drivers to confidently share their vehicle information across multiple applications to improve the transportation experience for all stakeholders, as well as to potentially monetize their data. The foundations for an application ecosystem have been developed which, taken together with the fair value for driving data and low barriers to entry, will drive adoption of CloudThink as the standard method for projecting physical vehicles into the cloud. The application space initially consists of a few fundamental and importan...

Device recognition for intuitive interaction with the web of things

Supporting human users when interacting with smart devices is important to drive the successful adoption of the Internet of Things in peoples homes and at their workplaces. In this poster contribution, we present a system that helps users control Web-enabled smart things in their environment. Our approach involves a handheld interaction device that recognizes smart things in its view using state-of-the-art visual object recognition techniques. It then augments the camera feed with appropriate interaction primitives such as knobs or buttons for control, and can also display measured values, for instance, when recognizing a sensor. The interaction primitives are generated from user interface descriptions that are embedded in the Web representations of the smart things. Our prototype implementation achieves frame rates that allow for interactive use of the system by human users, and indeed proved to facilitate the interaction with smart things in a demonstration testbed in our research group.

Leveraging the Web for a Distributed Location-aware Infrastructure for the Real World

Since GPS receivers have become a commodity anyone could access and use location information simply and freely. Such an easy access to one’s location is instrumental to the development of location-aware applications. However, existing applications are static in that they do not model relations between places and mobile things. Moreover, these applications do not allow to easily map the physical location of mobile devices to virtual resources on the Internet. We attempt to bridge this gap by extending the base concepts that make up the Internet with the physical location of devices, in order to facilitate the development of Web-based location-aware applications for embedded mobile devices. In this chapter, we propose a simple infrastructure for the “Web of Things” that extends the existing Web to enable location-aware applications. The proposed solution enables a naturally hierarchic way to search for location-aware devices and the services they provide.

User-friendly configuration of smart environments

The configuration of smart homes represents a difficult task for end-users. We propose a goal-driven approach to this challenge, where users express their needs using a graphical configuration environment. Our system then uses semantic descriptions of devices in the users surroundings to derive a plan to reach the desired situation. We are able to satisfy complex demands using only first-order logic, which makes this system flexible yet fast. The focus of this paper is to demonstrate how to achieve high usability of the proposed system without burdening users with the underlying semantic technologies. Our initial demo supports setting the ambient temperature, alarms, and media playback, but the use of semantics allows to extend the system with many different kinds of services in a decentralized way.