White Paper RWI reference model draft
From RwiWiki
Contents |
[edit] Introduction
http://rwi.future-internet.eu/index.php/White_Paper_RWI_reference_model
This white paper puts together the efforts from the different aspects in RWI and synthesise an overall architectural reference model for the RWI, which correctly represents the problem domain wide variety of applications we are dealing with. This allows for a first stock taking of current EC activities in this area, and provides a solid basis for further upcoming research and respective calls in the coming years to build upon. The draft architecture in this white paper captures the standard architectural design paradigm of components, communication and configurations (CCC):
- Components (static architecture): What are the major components in the architecture and how are they related?
- Communication (dynamic architecture): What are the main interactions / protocols among the components?
- Configurations (deployment): Which components / communications are present in a number of representative domains / applications? What are the valid configurations?
This will be done at all levels and specifically has to take cross-layer issues into account where they cannot be completely separated (separation of concerns). Other aspects which are addressed are:
- What are the design goals that have motivated your design?
- What are underlying design principles that you found valuable or you came up with for the design of your architecture?
[edit] Real World Internet (RWI)
A shortened version of http://rwi.future-internet.eu/index.php/Position_Paper
The Internet is evolving - in its use and in its technology. Born from the vision to create an open infrastructure to network computers across the world, the Internet has become a socio-economic backbone of our society, with countless private and business users as well as governments relying on it on a daily basis. The drivers for this evolution are a mix of emerging players with diverse and potentially changing interests, be it users, operators, manufacturers, service and content providers, together with advances in technology that have become available over the years.
Yet, the Internet was designed to provide a simple and transparent end-to-end transfer service across a heterogeneous wired network infrastructure, allowing the exchange of information between two or more communication endpoints. Its early applications were remote login and file transfer before the World Wide Web (WWW) emerged as the main driver for the Internet’s current success. Today the Internet is dominated by a variety of different applications, mainly concerned with human centric information exchange, such as e-mail or the access of hypertext documents, audio and video files or real-time multi-media communications. Besides its applications, the infrastructure of the Internet is also evolving, extending its reach to mobile users and end-devices with the inclusion of next generation mobile networks. This evolution of the Internet has lead to a patchwork of fixes that are now telling the tale and are requiring a rethink of the fundamental pillars of the Internet Architecture.
In addition to the evolution of the more traditional uses and current trends of the Internet, the Internet is extending its reach to the real world through innovations collectively termed the Internet of Things (IoT). The IoT concept was initially based around enabling technologies such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) or wireless sensor and actuator networks (WSAN), but nowadays spawns a wide variety of devices with different computing and communication capabilities – generically termed networked embedded devices (NED). While originating from applications such as supply chain management and logistics, IoT now targets multiple domains including automation, energy, e-health etc. More recent ideas have driven the IoT towards an all encompassing vision to integrate the real world into the Internet – The Real World Internet (RWI). RWI and IoT are expected to collaborate with other emerging concepts such as the Internet of Services (IoS) and the building block of parallel efforts, such as the Internet of Energy (IoE) is expected to revolutionize the energy infrastructure by bringing together IoS and IoT/RWI. It is clear that the RWI, will heavily impact the way we interact both in the virtual and physical world, overall contributing to the effort of the Future Internet.
[edit] The Vision
The ubiquity of mobile devices and proliferation of wireless networks will allow everyone permanent access to the Internet at all times and all places. The increased computational power of these devices has the potential to empower people to generate their own applications for innovative social and cognitive activities in any situation and anywhere. This wireless connection is not limited to user devices, almost any artifact from clothing to buildings can be connected and collaborate as a NED. Furthermore new sensor technologies and wireless sensor networks provide environmental intelligence and the capability to sense, reason and actuate. This leads to the exciting vision of the interconnection of artifacts embedded in our real environment, forming a society of “intelligent things” and “smart spaces”.
Trillions of heterogeneous NEDs such as sensors and actuators located in open space or attached to existing objects, RFID enabled items, robots and Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC), generally many heterogeneous devices with communication and computational capabilities are integrated into the fabric of the Internet, providing an accurate reflection of the real world, delivering fine-grained information and enabling almost real time interaction between the virtual world and real world. Information about location, status and situation of objects and persons, information about the places as well as influencing and changing the places (through actuation), objects and persons based on the gathered information and defined rules and policies can now flow e.g. into enterprise systems (Figure 1) and decisions can be made in real-time.
NEDs such as sensor and actuator networks, RFID readers have become more powerful with respect to computing power, memory, and communication; therefore they are starting to be built with the goal to offer their functionality as one or more services for consumption by other devices or services. Due to these advances we are slowly witnessing a paradigm shift where devices can offer more advanced access to their functionality and even host and execute business intelligence, therefore effectively providing the building blocks of a service-oriented architecture. As such, event based information can be acquired, processed on-device and in-network. This capability provides new ground for approaches that can be more dynamic and highly sophisticated, and that can take advantage of the available context. Cross-layer collaboration is expected to be a key issue in such a highly dynamic and heterogeneous infrastructure such as the RWI (Figure 2).
This results in an unprecedented level of detailed information that can be composed and used by many different applications such as:
- Ambient assisted living and health care – providing support for the elderly and impaired, giving them a new found improvement of their lifestyle and independence; allowing for more patients to be cared for in their own homes.
- Supply chain monitoring and logistics – counterfeit, intelligent maintenance, customer care and efficiency throughout the lifecycle of products, including more efficient recycling.
- Efficiency for transport, energy and facility management – alleviating congestion, providing more intelligent public transport that is responsive to needs, not timetables; managing office and home lighting, heating and air-conditioning depending on levels of use and occupancy.
- Improved Augmented Reality simulations – simultaneous visualization of virtual and real environments.
- Social and leisure applications – updating social networking based profiles (such as Facebook, HI5, MySpace, etc.) automatically; monitoring user’s fitness levels during any activity and providing timely feedback to influence and adapt the exercise routine appropriately.
- Manufacturers can create extended products, using RFID for uniquely identification, sensors and actuators to create value in physical goods by adding a service component to them.
[edit] Shortcomings in the Current Internet
Include a short review of the shortcomings as well as recyclable parts of the current internet and technologies in relation to the requirements of the RWI. We can add this as a section under the next chapter also.
[edit] Requirements
Describe the most important requirements for the successful introduction of the real world into the Internet including current and future system. Describe the required standardization. Again we can use something from http://rwi.future-internet.eu/index.php/Position_Paper (see below), but also include more concrete requirements for individual components in sections. We can something from ASPIRE on middleware for RFID systems. Furthermore a subdivision of devices on processing capabilities, context etc can give a better basis for the architecture. The key factors for the success of the RWI are the following (Figure 3):
- The efficient internetworking of heterogeneous networked embedded devices with the Internet.
- Horizontal access via a unified interface to information generated by the RWI in a secure and trusted manner.
- Highly composable information to generate new and innovative services.
- Standardised way of describing information about the real world.
- Integration of security and privacy protections at the NED, infrastructure and service levels.
- The combination with other adjacent areas such as Audiovisual wireless networks, based on capturing devices and sensors (for example for enhanced security applications)
- The availability of holistic object discovery services that can combine object specifics with more dynamic information such as location, time, sensor information (e.g. IETF ESDS).
- Secure, reliable real time network infrastructure.
- Identity Management: There will be multiple identifiers for people, machines, objects and it is necessary to specify how identities will be assigned.
- Resilience in the sense of the ability to respond to failure or interruptions.
[edit] RWI Architecture
The parts of a complete RWI architecture. Describe the system model as well as the architecture of individual elements.
What is already available, what is being dealt with in the current research, which are subject for future research.
[edit] System Model
E.g. from C-CAST.
[edit] Individual elements (e.g. RFID middleware)
An ASPIRE example.
[edit] Conclusion
[edit] Acknowledgment
Add the contributing projects.
[edit] Contributors
Name Company & E-mail
[edit] References
[edit] Revision History
| Version | Date | Contribution by | Comment |
| 0.2a | 26.04.2010 | Rasmus Hjorth Nielsen (AAU) | Wiki version |
| 0.2 | 07.04.2010 | Neeli Prasad (AAU) | Restructured according to telco on March 23, 2010 |
| 0.1 | 22.03.2010 | Neeli Prasad (AAU) | 1st draft ToC |
