A business model for a sensors-enabled IMS environment

The IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is one of the key components of third generation (3G) networks, while Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are an emerging type of networks formed by a set of distributed sensor nodes that collaborate to monitor physical and environmental conditions. By integrating the sensing capabilities of WSNs in the IMS, a rich set of contextual information can be exploited to provide new and personalized multimedia services to IMS users. We have previously proposed a presence-based WSNs/IMS integration architecture, and discussed its design and implementation aspects. In this paper, we focus on the aspects needed for the practical deployment of this architecture. An enhanced IMS business model is proposed for the resulting sensors-enabled IMS environment, and several important support functions are elaborated, including: a two-level identification scheme, a charging model, security and information access control mechanisms, as well as WSN gateways\u27 dynamic discovery alternatives. © 2012 IEEE

Ubiquitous Sensor Networks in IMS: an Ambient Intelligence Telco Platform

Ubiquitous Sensor Network (USN) concept describes the integration of heterogeneous and geographically dispersed Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks (WS&AN) into rich information infrastructures for accurate representation and access to different dynamic user’s physical contexts. This relatively new concept envisions future Sensor-Based Services leading to market disruptive innovations in a broad range of application domains, mainly personal (lifestyle assistants), community (professional users) and industrial domains. The support for this broad range of innovative Ambient Intelligence services urgently demands a standardized access to different WS&AN, and Telco Operators have an opportunity to lead this technological challenge as they evolve towards future Next-Generation Networks. Telefónica Research and Development is a leading innovation company that provides communication services for businesses and consumers. Networks and Service Platforms is a major Telefónica I+D innovation area where new Service Architectures and Platforms concepts are essential for the development of services with a high differentiation value. This contribution describes Telefónica I+D activities directed to the design of an Ambient Intelligence Platform integrating USN concepts over NGN architectures. In our view IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) concepts can enable and promote a first generation of Sensor-Based Services where multimedia interactive sessions are enriched with contextual information from WS&ANs. To this end three major design criteria are addressed at three different levels. At the application layer, OMA Service Environment and OGC Sensor Web Enablement are combined to define a specific USN Service Enabler. At the communication, management and control level WS&AN Gateways are defined for integrating WS&ANs infrastructures into all-IP IMS environments. While at the lower level, data and meta-data exchanges with different WS&ANs entities are homogeneously represented using OGC® SensorML standard. Finally this paper concludes by discussing some preliminary business opportunities we foresee for the proposed Platform

Presence-based integration of wireless sensor network and IP multimedia subsystem : architecture implementation and case studies

Services are the main driving forces of the Telecommunication industry. In old days the traditional networks e.g. PSTN and mobile cellular networks provide basic services to customers such as voice call, SMS. Unlike mobile cellular networks, Internet provides wide variety of services that allow users to communicate in different ways for example E-mail, WWW, VoIP, and Instant Messaging. To benefit from these Internet (IP) based services and to support new value-added services in mobile cellular networks, the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is defined. It aims at convergence of Internet and the cellular world. IMS introduced an architectural framework envisioned by telecom experts for providing wide variety of multimedia services for example Presence, Context-based applications, Conferencing, Video-on-Demand, Instant Messaging to name just a few. The main ingredients of these services are data which can be either provided by users or derived from external sources (other networks). In recent years, Wireless Sensor Networks have emerged as networks of tiny devices, sensor nodes. WSNs are characteristically different from existing networks. In general, a WSN is a data oriented network in which sensors sense physical environment and produce data to deliver it to interested applications. These applications are usually external to WSN and reside in an external network (e.g. IMS). The applications or services use this physical data to deliver enhanced services such as context-based services to mobile users. The challenge is to integrate WSN with IMS so that the WSN data can be accessible to IMS services or applications. This thesis exploits a presence-based approach for the integration of WSN and IMS network. A standard interface for data exchange between WSN and IMS has been devised in the Telecommunication Service Engineering group. The data exchange between WSN and IMS services/applications is realized as a publish-subscribe mechanism. In publish-subscribe mechanism the applications subscribe to WSN services (data) and get notified when sensors report any data while the WSN is acting as publisher to publish sensor data to IMS. The presence-based WSN -- IMS architecture provides an abstraction to services and applications for accessing variety of sensed data from different WSNs. The presence based WSN-IMS architecture realizes two main architectural entities, the integrated WSN-IMS gateway and an IMS extended presence server. These two architectural entities play a key role in interworking of WSN and IMS network. The overall architecture has been implemented and tested with prototype applications as well as a performance evaluation has been done to see the efficiency and applicability of the integrated architectur

An architecture for the integration of Wireless Actuation Capabilities with IP Multimedia Subsystem

The IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is an architecture that aims at seamlessly delivering multimedia services. It enables IP multimedia services for end-user using standard Internet based protocols such as Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). Examples of multimedia services include presence, instant messaging, enhanced voice and video, pervasive gaming and emergency services. Wireless actuators are small scale devices that can receive/accept instructions and act on their surrounding environment. They are broadly used in automation industry and intelligent control systems. With the rapid development of Internet and mobile telecommunication technologies, more and more actuators are being deployed in applications such as environment monitoring, home automation and health care to improve human beings’ living conditions. Combining actuators’ actuation capabilities with IMS will certainly enable novel value added services. However, the actuator networks are application specific and provide proprietary interfaces to the external world. Integrating wireless Actuator Networks (AN) with IMS to enable actuation service to IMS end users through standard protocols and interfaces is the objective of this thesis. There are several challenges related to this integration: First, there is no ready-to-use architecture for the integration. New functional entities and suitable protocols for actuation triggering are needed. Second, there are no actuators in the market with open interfaces to the external world, we need to find alternative solutions for the realization of the integrated architecture. Third, there is no information model for abstracting actuation command semantics and this has to be defined. In this thesis we derive a set of requirements for the integration of AN actuation capabilities with IMS, we review and evaluate related work, and then propose a novel architecture. This architecture includes two new functional entities for IMS: The Actuation Control Function (ACF) and the Wireless Actuator Gateway (WAG). The ACF handles high level actuation requests from other applications. It acts as an intermediate component and hides the low level actuation commands from the applications. The WAG transforms high level actuation commands to low level, proprietary and actual actuation commands that can be understood and executed by actuators. A detailed survey and evaluation of existing protocols for actuation command carrying is also provided. We define an actuation command information model to abstract the actuation triggering instructions. We implement the key components of the proposed architecture. A proof of concept prototype has been implemented using simulated robots equipped with actuators. The average end-to-end actuation delay of our architecture is evaluated through experiments with the prototype