Middleware Technologies for Cloud of Things - a survey

The next wave of communication and applications rely on the new services provided by Internet of Things which is becoming an important aspect in human and machines future. The IoT services are a key solution for providing smart environments in homes, buildings and cities. In the era of a massive number of connected things and objects with a high grow rate, several challenges have been raised such as management, aggregation and storage for big produced data. In order to tackle some of these issues, cloud computing emerged to IoT as Cloud of Things (CoT) which provides virtually unlimited cloud services to enhance the large scale IoT platforms. There are several factors to be considered in design and implementation of a CoT platform. One of the most important and challenging problems is the heterogeneity of different objects. This problem can be addressed by deploying suitable "Middleware". Middleware sits between things and applications that make a reliable platform for communication among things with different interfaces, operating systems, and architectures. The main aim of this paper is to study the middleware technologies for CoT. Toward this end, we first present the main features and characteristics of middlewares. Next we study different architecture styles and service domains. Then we presents several middlewares that are suitable for CoT based platforms and lastly a list of current challenges and issues in design of CoT based middlewares is discussed.Comment: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352864817301268, Digital Communications and Networks, Elsevier (2017

Middleware Technologies for Cloud of Things - a survey

The next wave of communication and applications rely on the new services provided by Internet of Things which is becoming an important aspect in human and machines future. The IoT services are a key solution for providing smart environments in homes, buildings and cities. In the era of a massive number of connected things and objects with a high grow rate, several challenges have been raised such as management, aggregation and storage for big produced data. In order to tackle some of these issues, cloud computing emerged to IoT as Cloud of Things (CoT) which provides virtually unlimited cloud services to enhance the large scale IoT platforms. There are several factors to be considered in design and implementation of a CoT platform. One of the most important and challenging problems is the heterogeneity of different objects. This problem can be addressed by deploying suitable "Middleware". Middleware sits between things and applications that make a reliable platform for communication among things with different interfaces, operating systems, and architectures. The main aim of this paper is to study the middleware technologies for CoT. Toward this end, we first present the main features and characteristics of middlewares. Next we study different architecture styles and service domains. Then we presents several middlewares that are suitable for CoT based platforms and lastly a list of current challenges and issues in design of CoT based middlewares is discussed.Comment: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352864817301268, Digital Communications and Networks, Elsevier (2017

A Survey on Sensor Networks from a Multiagent Perspective

Sensor networks (SNs) have arisen as one of the most promising technologies for the next decades. The recent emergence of small and inexpensive sensors based upon microelectromechanical systems ease the development and proliferation of this kind of networks in a wide range of actual-world applications. Multiagent systems (MAS) have been identified as one of the most suitable technologies to contribute to the deployment of SNs that exhibit flexibility, robustness and autonomy. The purpose of this survey is 2-fold. On the one hand, we review the most relevant contributions of agent technologies to this emerging application domain. On the other hand, we identify the challenges that researchers must address to establish MAS as the key enabling technology for SNs.This work has been funded by projects IEA(TIN2006-15662-C02-01), Agreement Technologies (CONSOLIDER CSD2007-0022, INGENIO 2010), EVE (TIN2009-14702-C02-01,TIN2009-14702-C02-02) and Generalitat de Catalunya under the gran t2009-SGR-1434. Meritxell Vinyals is supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education (FPU grant AP2006-04636)Peer Reviewe

A ROS2 based communication architecture for control in collaborative and intelligent automation systems

Collaborative robots are becoming part of intelligent automation systems in modern industry. Development and control of such systems differs from traditional automation methods and consequently leads to new challenges. Thankfully, Robot Operating System (ROS) provides a communication platform and a vast variety of tools and utilities that can aid that development. However, it is hard to use ROS in large-scale automation systems due to communication issues in a distributed setup, hence the development of ROS2. In this paper, a ROS2 based communication architecture is presented together with an industrial use-case of a collaborative and intelligent automation system.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables, to be published in the proceedings of 29th International Conference on Flexible Automation and Intelligent Manufacturing (FAIM2019), June 201

Manufacturing Process Optimization Using Edge Analytics

Most manufacturing plants contain some amount of time series sensor data – streams of values and time stamps. This data, however, isn’t useful with most types of analytics or machine learning for the purpose of process optimization. This thesis presents a novel and innovative solution to the problem using a software stack leveraging the Predix Complex Event Processing Engine (Edge Analytics) to condition the data, combined with RFID for serialization. Each step in the formation of the solution is documented, from connecting equipment to analyzing and ingesting data produced by the edge analytic. This solution was developed and piloted at the GE Grid Solutions plant in Clearwater, FL

Interoperability middleware for IIoT gateways based on international standard ontologies and standardized digital representation

Recent advances in the areas of microelectronics, information technology, and communication protocols have made the development of smaller devices with greater processing capacity and lower energy consumption. This context contributed to the growing number of physical devices in industrial environments which are interconnected and communicate via the internet, enabling concepts such as Industry 4.0 and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). These nodes have different sensors and actuators that monitor and control environment data. Several companies develop these devices, including diverse communication protocols, data structures, and IoT platforms, which leads to interoperability issues. In IoT scenarios, interoperability is the ability of two systems to communicate and share services. Therefore, communication problems can make it unfeasible to use heterogeneous devices, increasing the project’s financial cost and development time. In an industry, interoperability is related to different aspects, such as physical communication, divergent device communication protocols, and syntactical problems, referring to the distinct data structure. Developing a new standard for solving these matters may bring interoperability-related drawbacks rather than effectively solving these issues. Therefore, to mitigate interoperability problems in industrial applications, this work proposes the development of an interoperability middleware for Edge-enabled IIoT gateways based on international standards. The middleware is responsible for translating communication protocols, updating data from simulations or physical nodes to the assets’ digital representations, and storing data locally or remotely. The middleware adopts the IEEE industrial standard ontologies combined with assets’ standardized digital models. As a case study, a simulation replicates the production of a nutrient solution for agriculture, controlled by IIoT nodes. The use case consists of three devices, each equipped with at least five sensors or actuators, communicating in different communication protocols and exchanging data using diverse structures. The performance of the proposed middleware and its proposed translations algorithms were evaluated, obtaining satisfactory results for mitigating interoperable in industrial applications.Devido a recentes avanços nas áreas de microeletrônica, tecnologia da informação, e protocolos de comunicação tornaram possível o desenvolvimento de dispositivos cada vez menores com maior capacidade de processamento e menor consumo energético. Esse contexto contribuiu para o crescente nú- mero desses dispositivos na industria que estão interligados via internet, viabilizando conceitos como Indústria 4.0 e Internet das Coisas Industrial (IIoT). Esses nós possuem diferentes sensores e atuadores que monitoram e controlam os dados do ambiente. Esses equipamentos são desenvolvidos por diferentes empresas, incluindo protocolos de comunicação, estruturas de dados e plataformas de IoT distintos, acarretando em problemas de interoperabilidade. Em cenários de IoT, interoperabilidade, é a capacidade de sistemas se comunicarem e compartilharem serviços. Portanto, esses problemas podem inviabilizar o uso de dispositivos heterogêneos, aumentando o custo financeiro do projeto e seu tempo de desenvolvimento. Na indústria, interoperabilidade se divide em diferentes aspectos, como comunicação e problemas sintáticos, referentes à estrutura de dados distinta. O desenvolvimento de um padrão industrial pode trazer mais desvantagens relacionadas à interoperabilidade, em vez de resolver esses problemas. Portanto, para mitigar problemas relacionados a intoperabilidade industrial, este trabalho propõe o desenvolvimento de um middleware de interoperável para gateways IIoT baseado em padrões internacionais e ontologias. O middleware é responsável por traduzir diferentes protocolos de comunicação, atualizar os dados dos ativos industriais por meio de suas representações digitais, esses armazenados localmente ou remotamente. O middleware adota os padrões ontológicos industriais da IEEE combinadas com modelos digitais padronizados de ativos industriais. Como estudo de caso, são realizadas simulações para a produção de uma solução nutritiva para agricultura, controlada por nós IIoT. O processo utiliza três dispositivos, cada um equipado com pelo menos cinco sensores ou atuadores, por meio de diferentes protocolos de comunicação e estruturas de dados. O desempenho do middleware proposto e seus algoritmos de tradução foram avaliados e apresentados no final do trabalho, os quais resultados foram satisfatórios para mitigar a interoperabilidade em aplicações industriais

Methodology for Testing RFID Applications

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a promising technology for process automation and beyond that capable of identifying objects without the need for a line-of-sight. However, the trend towards automatic identification of objects also increases the demand for high quality RFID applications. Therefore, research on testing RFID systems and methodical approaches for testing are needed. This thesis presents a novel methodology for the system level test of RFID applications. The approach called ITERA, allows for the automatic generation of tests, defines a semantic model of the RFID system and provides a test environment for RFID applications. The method introduced can be used to gradually transform use cases into a semi-formal test specification. Test cases are then systematically generated, in order to execute them in the test environment. It applies the principle of model based testing from a black-box perspective in combination with a virtual environment for automatic test execution. The presence of RFID tags in an area, monitored by an RFID reader, can be modelled by time-based sets using set-theory and discrete events. Furthermore, the proposed description and semantics can be used to specify RFID systems and their applications, which might also be used for other purposes than testing. The approach uses the Unified Modelling Language to model the characteristics of the system under test. Based on the ITERA meta model test execution paths are extracted directly from activity diagrams and RFID specific test cases are generated. The approach introduced in this thesis allows to reduce the efforts for RFID application testing by systematically generating test cases and the automatic test execution. In combination with meta model and by considering additional parameters, like unreliability factors, it not only satisfies functional testing aspects, but also increases the confidence in the robustness of the tested application. Mixed with the instantly available virtual readers, it has the potential to speed up the development process and decrease the costs - even during the early development phases. ITERA can be used for highly automated testing, reproducible tests and because of the instantly available readers, even before the real environment is deployed. Furthermore, the total control of the RFID environment enables to test applications which might be difficult to test manually. This thesis will explain the motivation and objectives of this new RFID application test methodology. Based on a RFID system analysis it proposes a practical solution on the identified issues. Further, it gives a literature review on testing fundamentals, model based test case generation, the typical components of a RFID system and RFID standards used in industry.Integrative Test-Methodology for RFID Applications (ITERA) - Project: Eurostars!5516 ITERA, FKZ 01QE1105

Digital Twins: Review and Challenges

[EN] With the arises of Industry 4.0, numerous concepts have emerged; one of the main concepts is the digital twin (DT). DT is being widely used nowadays, however, as there are several uses in the existing literature; the understanding of the concept and its functioning can be diffuse. The main goal of this paper is to provide a review of the existing literature to clarify the concept, operation, and main characteristics of DT, to introduce the most current operating, communication, and usage trends related to this technology, and to present the performance of the synergy between DT and multi-agent system (MAS) technologies through a computer science approach.This work was partly supported by the Spanish Government (RTI2018-095390-B-C31)Juárez-Juárez, MG.; Botti, V.; Giret Boggino, AS. (2021). Digital Twins: Review and Challenges. Journal of Computing and Information Science in Engineering. 21(3):1-23. https://doi.org/10.1115/1.405024412321