Motivation
Recent advances in computer systems and in communication technologies and protocols, as well as in service-oriented (SoA) and everything as a service (EaaS) architectures, set a fertile ground for the rapid growth of the Internet of Things (IoT). The main feature of IoT is the integration of heterogeneous and multimodal sensors, processing units and action elements (actuators) in a distributed and ambient environment. Billions of devices are expected to be interconnected and integrated as (Micro-) Services, which can be used and re-used by developers making the building and realization of complex applications easier. On the other hand, IoT platforms are necessary to facilitate the communication capabilities of the developed services, along with the service discovery process, support interoperability, and service composition. At a higher level, the IoT revolution will rely on multiple platforms that also need to be interoperable for the realization of the IoT vision.
Research and Development Area:
One problem in this field is the interconnection of heterogeneous platforms, systems, and services, in order to fully cooperate with each other in every aspect of their operation (such as turning on / off, configuration, exchange of information, etc.) [1,2]. The vision is to create seamless interconnections, and provide an infrastructure for the automatic discoverability, configuration, and execution of IoT services and platforms [3,4]. However, since existing systems are often developed independently of each other, the challenge is how to use semantics, open APIs, reference architectures or common protocols for the interconnection amongst the platforms in order to support and expose the interoperability capabilities to third party developers or services.
Goals and Expected Outcomes:
As part of this work, we will examine existing systems and services (such as APIs from FIWARE-www.fiware.org ecosystem), protocols, and desirable features, which are under development (eg. symbIoTe-www.symbiote-h2020.eu, and BIG IoT-www.big-iot.eu). Then, specific scenarios will be developed which will demonstrate that interoperability is possible, using the IoT platform “SYNAISTHISI” and IoT-enabled services, which have already been developed by the IIT for experimental purposes. This thesis gives an opportunity to the student to deal with technologies and protocols of the Internet of Things, which are expected in the future to form the basis for the development of the majority of computer systems and applications.
For more information, please contact
Dr Costas S. Spyropoulos
Director of Research
costass@iit.demokritos.gr
[1] Interoperability: The Challenge Facing the Internet of Things: http://www.altimetergroup.com/2014/02/interoperability-the-challenge-fac...
[2] 5 Things To Know About The IoT Platform Ecosystem: https://iot-analytics.com/5-things-know-about-iot-platform/
[3] Misra, P., Rajaraman, V., Dhotrad, K., Warrior, J. and Simmhan, Y., 2015. An Interoperable Realization of Smart Cities with Plug and Play based Device Management. arXiv preprint arXiv:1503.00923.
[4] P. Desai, A. Sheth and P. Anantharam, "Semantic Gateway as a Service Architecture for IoT Interoperability," 2015 IEEE International Conference on Mobile Services, New York, NY, 2015, pp. 313-319.