Semantic-based web services for devices selection

Description

The last decade achievements in computer hardware miniaturization and power consumption reduction has permitted the multiplication of connected devices integrated in everyday life physical objects (chair, table, lamp, etc…) and physical environments (house, building, vehicle, etc…). These devices implement resources interacting with objects (actuator) and/or gathering data (sensor) about themselves, the objects or the environment. Access to these resources is achieved through services exposing their interfaces and allowing communication with the digital world. Widely deployed in so called ambient environments, these devices and services are selected by ambient applications (service matchmaking) that make them work in concert to assist users in several distinct domains (healthcare, smart houses, etc…). This cooperation requires a strong interoperability between devices, firstly achieved by allowing them to communicate. Although work on communication protocols (IoT, Internet of Things) tries to provide a solution to the technological heterogeneity issue, it is still challenging due to the large number of initiatives in this field. Among all the possible solutions, web-services based approach (WoT, Web of Things) is now widely accepted.With this hypothesis, and going a step further, the purpose of the present document is to address the semantic heterogeneity issue inherent to the large number of heterogeneous devices and services present in the environment targeting multiple domains (smart homes, smart cities, building automation, healthcare, etc…). This heterogeneity is problematic for ambient applications to select, among all the available devices and services, the most relevant ones. We investigate in this document how semantic web technologies can be leveraged to enrich devices and services with semantic annotations used to qualify it (SWoT, Semantic Web of Things) and help applications selection mechanism to increase the relevancy of the selected devices and services.

Additional details