Elsevier

Neurocomputing

Volume 256, 20 September 2017, Pages 13-22
Neurocomputing

Description and classification for facilitating interoperability of heterogeneous data/events/services in the Internet of Things

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neucom.2016.03.115Get rights and content

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to an infrastructure that integrates things over standard wired/wireless networks and allows them to exchange information with each other. The IoT is a very complex heterogeneous network, enabling seamless integration of these things is a huge challenge. A publish/subscribe method of integration can be formulated to solve the problems of interconnecting billions of heterogeneous things. In our work, an IoT framework that uses an abstraction layer that decouples an application from the service calls and network interfaces is required to send and receive messages on a particular thing. This paper provides definitions and classifications for heterogeneous data/events/services according to the properties of the things in order to integrate them into a framework for description. Based on these definitions and classifications, heterogeneous data/events/services in the IoT were integrated via topic description through the Data Distribution Service (DDS) middleware standard for real-time publish/subscribe. This paper also concludes with general remarks and a discussion of future work.

Introduction

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network infrastructure of physical things that contain embedded technology allowing them to communicate and interact with each other [1], [2]. There are many different groups that have defined the IoT. The MIT Auto-ID Center defines the term “Internet of Things” as a system in which the Internet is connected to the physical world via sensors and actuators based on Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID), enabling all physical things to act as nodes in a networked physical world [3]. According to the ITU's Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T), the IoT is a technological revolution that represents the future of computing and communications; its development depends on dynamic technical innovation in a number of important fields, from wireless sensors to nanotechnology [4]. In the European Commission, the IoT uses an intellectual interface for things to communicate and connect through social, environmental and user contexts [5].

Things, in the IoT, can refer to physical objects such as sensors, actuators and devices embedded with electronics, software and connectivity to enable the things to achieve greater value and service by exchanging data. We use terms, “things” to give the same meaning as they are frequently used in the IoT related research papers. Other terms used by the research community are “objects”, “smart objects”, “devices”, and “nodes”. As shown in Fig. 1, we defined the things as features that: (i) Each thing may comprise one or more data, events and services. A thing is a piece of equipment with the mandatory capabilities of sensing, actuation, data capture, data storage, data processing and communication. We defined the things are classified into data (sensors), events (accentures) and services (actuators) according to the type of action. In the IoT, data refers to attribute values such as variables and to integer values; events refer to when certain conditions are met or when certain states are reached. Services allow certain functions to be carried out through a predefined interface [6], [7]. The messages generated in a variety of forms by numerous things can be abstracted into data/ events/services. (ii) Each thing possesses a unique identifier and is associated to at least one name and one addressing. Each thing is uniquely identifiable through its embedded computing system but can be interoperated within the existing communication protocols. (iii) Each thing has a set of communication functionalities such as the ability to be discovered and to understand incoming messages and reply to them. The things collect various kinds of information and provide it to the communication networks for further processing. Some things also execute operations based on information received from the information and communication networks [6].

Advances in wired/wireless networking technology and the greater standardization of communication protocols make it possible to collect data from things almost anywhere and at any time. Things that are readable, recognizable, locatable, addressable and/or controllable via existing communication protocols. Many communication protocols are well known such as RFID, Near Field Communication (NFC), ZigBee, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, IPv6 over Low power Wireless Personal Area Networks (6LowPAN) and Machine-to-Machine (M2M) or other means. The IoT refers to a dynamic global network infrastructure with self-configuring capabilities based on standard and interoperable communication protocols in which things use intelligent interfaces and are seamlessly integrated into the information network [2].

It is foreseeable that the IoT will have more than one communication protocol to enable applications in different domain. This will enable the selection of the desired communication protocol that fits a certain application within an identified domain. Consistent methods must be provided to access things and transmit information because wired/wireless communication protocols have different identification, data types, input/output parameters, transmission methods and programming languages. Accordingly, the applications have to handle different kinds of data formats and protocols which generate the confusion. On the other hand, once a new kind of thing protocol appears, the developed IoT system will have to be modified to fit the situation. The modification will affect the IoT system so much that it will bring down the stability and performance [8]. It is expected that these heterogeneous trends will continue, while in parallel the number of connected things will explode.

To solve these heterogeneous problems, the studies referenced in [[9], [10], [11], [12], [13]] and [14] have created abstractions for communication protocols using middleware-based network interfaces and integrated messages for service requests/responses. This method simply delivers messages without reflecting the characteristics of the things involved. When integration is carried out from a network perspective, a single middleware cannot include various wired and/or wireless communication protocols and low-level network interfaces. The main challenge is to manage and maintain a large number of things and react intelligently according to the data generated by them. This challenge can be resolved through content-centric integration, which can account for the different characteristics of messages [15].

For this purpose, we propose an IoT framework that creates an abstraction layer that decouples an application from the system calls and network interfaces required to send and receive messages on a particular thing. In the IoT, it is commonly accepted that the framework can be used for control, if not for data. For this reason, we discuss the justification for using different types of messages; we also provide well-defined semantics for exchanging data. This paper presents a system that transmits messages of things based on the Data Distribution Service (DDS) [16] of the publish/subscribe model. The messages are classified into data/events/services and then defined by DDS topic according to purpose. Through things, millions of users can publish/subscribe to the data/events/services topic they are interested in when they participate in different applications. Furthermore, it is likely that a very large number of data/events/services topic will be published simultaneously and processing these topics under critical timing constraints will often be required by lots of applications. In this paper we argue that a middleware together with suitable linguistic abstraction is a proper solution.

This paper is organized as follows: the next section introduces related work and related research into the IoT. This paper provides definitions and classifications for heterogeneous data/events/services according to the properties of the things in the IoT in order to integrate them into a framework for description, which is outlined in Section 3. Section 4 outlines a DDS topic description for the integration of heterogeneous data/events/services. Finally, in Section 5, the conclusions and future work related to this paper are presented.

Section snippets

Related work

This study adopts the DDS middleware of the publish/subscribe model, which delivers data/events/services without requiring information regarding the end-point of each thing. The DDS, designated by Object Management Group (OMG) as a type of standard data-centric real-time middleware, supports a distributed environment and enables loosely coupled, asynchronous communication between multiple publishers and subscribers participating in the domain. In addition, the communications are controlled by a

Definitions of data/event/service

The methods in [25] describe a classification of things in the IoT—passive things, responder things, autonomous thing and the nine different kinds of messages they can send depending on the information contained in them. For example, a connected car is a smart thing that automatically resets its path based on satellite transmitted traffic data. According to [25], the type of message expressed and the information it contains denote the intelligence of the thing. However, as things can take on a

DDS topic description for integrating heterogeneous data/events/services

Figs. 7 and 8 show the DDS topic description for heterogeneous data/events/services and methods of integration. A single thing can provide either one or all of the following: data, event(s) and service(s). The specification of each thing into a topic provides an interface for the IoT applications and allows many-to-many communication. As shown in Fig. 8, abstraction is applied to the heterogeneous data/events/services. The heterogeneous things are equipped with synchronous/asynchronous,

Final remarks

Based on the intended uses of various things, this study developed definitions and classifications for data/events/services in the IoT. Based on these definitions, heterogeneous data/events/services in the IoT were integrated via topic description through the DDS middleware standard for real-time publish/subscribe. With this standard, it becomes possible to apply a quality of things model to ensure the quality of various data/events/services.

Although things can be expressed as data, event or

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Human Resource Training Program for Regional Innovation and Creativity through the Ministry of Education and National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2014H1C1A1066721) and Construction of HPC-based Service Infrastructure Responding to National Scale Disaster (K-15-L03-C03) funded by Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information.

Hyung-Jun Yim received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Engineering from Chungnam National University, Korea in 2007, 2009 and 2015, respectively. From 2014 to 2015, he worked as a researcher at Software Research Center (SOREC) in Chungnam National University, Korea. He is now the senior researcher in the Convergence Technology Research Division, Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI), Korea. His main research interests include Internet of Things (IoT), big

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    Hyung-Jun Yim received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Engineering from Chungnam National University, Korea in 2007, 2009 and 2015, respectively. From 2014 to 2015, he worked as a researcher at Software Research Center (SOREC) in Chungnam National University, Korea. He is now the senior researcher in the Convergence Technology Research Division, Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI), Korea. His main research interests include Internet of Things (IoT), big data processing and real-time processing.

    Dongmin Seo received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in Information and Communication Engineering from Chungbuk National University, Korea in 2002, 2004 and 2008, respectively. He is now the senior researcher in the Convergence Technology Research Division, Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI), Korea. His main research interests include Semantic-Web, Moving-Objects Database (MOD) system, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN), XML database system, e-Spine and biomedical convergence technology.

    Hanmin Jung is now the chief researcher in the Convergence Technology Research Division, Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI), Korea since 2004. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science and Engineering from POSTECH, Korea in 1994 and 2003. Previously, he was senior researcher at Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), Korea, and worked as CTO at DiQuest Inc, Korea, His current research interests include technology intelligence based on the Semantic Web and text mining technologies, human-computer interaction (HCI), and natural language processing (NLP).

    Moon-Ki Back received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Computer Engineering from Chungnam National University, Korea in 2013 and 2015, respectively. He is now a Ph.D. candidate in Chungnam National University, Korea. His main research interests include database systems, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) and interoperation for constrained networks in Internet of Things (IoT).

    InA Kim received her B.S degree in Computer Engineering from Chungnam National University, Korea in 2014. She is now a M.S. candidate in Chungnam National University, Korea. Her main research interests include database systems, big data processing and Internet of Things (IoT).

    Kyu-Chul Lee received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Engineering from Seoul National University in 1984, 1986, and 1996, respectively. In 1994, he worked as a visiting researcher at the IBM Almaden Research Center, San Jose, California. From 1995 to 1996, he worked as a Visiting Professor at the CASE Center at Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York. He is currently a Professor in the Department of Computer Engineering at Chungnam National University, Daejeon, Korea. His current areas include database system, Internet of Things (IoT), Semantic Web, big data processing and XML Web Services. He has published over 100 technical articles in various journals and conferences. He is a member of ACM, IEEE Computer Society, and Korea Information Science Society.

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