System of Systems Lifecycle Management: A New Concept Based on Process Engineering Methodologies

In order to tackle interoperability issues of large-scale automation systems, SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture) principles, where information exchange is manifested by systems providing and consuming services, have already been introduced. However, the deployment, operation, and maintenance of an extensive SoS (System of Systems) mean enormous challenges for system integrators as well as network and service operators. The existing lifecycle management approaches do not cover all aspects of SoS management; therefore, an integrated solution is required. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new lifecycle approach, namely the SoSLM (System of Systems Lifecycle Management). This paper first provides an in-depth description and comparison of the most relevant process engineering methodologies and ITSM (Information Technology Service Management) frameworks, and how they affect various lifecycle management strategies. The paper’s novelty strives to introduce an Industry 4.0-compatible PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) model and to extend it to cover SoS management-related issues on well-known process engineering methodologies. The presented methodologies are adapted to the PLM model, thus creating the recommended SoSLM model. This is supported by demonstrations of how the IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) applications and services can be developed and handled. Accordingly, complete implementation and integration are presented based on the proposed SoSLM model, using the Arrowhead framework that is available for IIoT SoS. View Full-Tex

Towards trustworthy end-to-end communication in industry 4.0

Industry 4.0 considers integration of IT and control systems with physical objects, software, sensors and connectivity in order to optimize manufacturing processes. It provides advanced functionalities in control and communication for an infrastructure that handles multiple tasks in various locations automatically. Automatic actions require information from trustworthy sources. Thus, this work is focused on how to ensure trustworthy communication from the edge devices to the backend infrastructure. We derive a meta-model based on RAMI 4.0, which is used to describe an end-to-end communication use case for an Industry 4.0 application scenario and to identify dependabilities in case of security challenges. Furthermore, we evaluate secure messaging protocols and the integration of Trusted Platform Module (TPM) as a root of trust for dataexchange. We define a set of representative measurable indicator points based on existing standards and use them for automated dependability detection within the whole system

Joint Power Control and Structural Health Monitoring in Industry 4.0 Scenarios using Eclipse Arrowhead and Web of Things

The integration of legacy IoT ecosystems in Industry 4.0 scenarios requires human effort to adapt single devices. This process would highly benefit from features like device lookup, loose coupling and late binding. In this paper, we tackle the issue of integrating legacy monitoring systems and actuation systems in an industrial scenario, by looking into the Web of Things (WoT) as a communication standard and the Eclipse Arrowhead Framework (AHF) as a service orchestrator. More specifically, we propose a general architectural approach to enable closed-loop automation between the above mentioned legacy systems by leveraging the adaptation of the WoT to the AHF. Then, we develop a rule-based engine that enables the control of the actuation based on sensor values. Finally, we present a proof-of-concept use case where we integrate a Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) scenario with a power control actuation subsystem using the developed component

A Survey on the Web of Things

The Web of Things (WoT) paradigm was proposed first in the late 2000s, with the idea of leveraging Web standards to interconnect all types of embedded devices. More than ten years later, the fragmentation of the IoT landscape has dramatically increased as a consequence of the exponential growth of connected devices, making interoperability one of the key issues for most IoT deployments. Contextually, many studies have demonstrated the applicability of Web technologies on IoT scenarios, while the joint efforts from the academia and the industry have led to the proposals of standard specifications for developing WoT systems. Through a systematic review of the literature, we provide a detailed illustration of the WoT paradigm for both researchers and newcomers, by reconstructing the temporal evolution of key concepts and the historical trends, providing an in-depth taxonomy of software architectures and enabling technologies of WoT deployments and, finally, discussing the maturity of WoT vertical markets. Moreover, we identify some future research directions that may open the way to further innovation on WoT systems

A comparative study on multi-agent and service-oriented microgrid automation systems from energy internet perspective

The current advancements of energy, information, communication, and automation technologies and their integration have provided ways for the energy industry to transform into cleaner energy systems. This transition has contributed to the concept called energy internet. The recent energy technologies provide clean energy generation, storage and demand response through distributed energy resources. Information, communication, and automation technologies aim to provide supporting software tools and enabling mechanisms to automate the operation and control of those resources in a coordinated way. Thus, researchers and the software industry are developing software frameworks and platforms to support energy system automation. Commonly, most of the frameworks follow the design principles of either multi-agent systems (MAS) or service-oriented architecture (SOA). However, there are many frameworks and no straightforward criteria to select which one to implement in energy systems’ automation applications to fulfill the energy internet vision. This study provides a conceptual investigation of MAS- and SOA-based software solutions by designing a use case for microgrid application automation considering its expansion for enabling energy internet. Two software frameworks, RIAPS and Arrowhead, have been selected as the candidates of MAS and SOA from the literature study. This study shows that neither MAS or SOA approach alone might not meet the requirements of microgrid automation and energy internet. Consequently, a combined approach of MAS and SOA is proposed.publishedVersionPeer reviewe

Management of IoT systems for urban services

Urban Cities are growing exponentially and with them the need for efficient management of city resources. SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) and IoT (Internet of Things) provides promising solutions for this issue. SOA brings interoperability, reusability and dynamic discovery. Whereas, IoT provide next evolution on the Internet by allowing physical real-world objects to connect to the internet through unique identifiers. Arrowhead Project has developed a framework to provide collaborative automation by enabling embedded devices to interact with each other. This project uses SOA to target five different domains. These domains include Smart Building and Infrastructure, Energy Production, Virtual Market of Energy, Production, and Electro-Mobility. In the thesis, three applications were developed. Light Simulator was developed to demonstrate the working principle of the IoT enabled Light devices. Meter application was developed to monitor and manage IoT enabled systems. Finally, Energy Consumption service was developed as a pilot service for Arrowhead Project. This service was deployed on Arrowhead and it calculates the energy consumed by different real-time objects. Furthermore, since Arrowhead framework follows all principles of SOA, reusability of above services can provide composability to develop further applications

Digitising the Industry Internet of Things Connecting the Physical, Digital and VirtualWorlds

This book provides an overview of the current Internet of Things (IoT) landscape, ranging from the research, innovation and development priorities to enabling technologies in a global context. A successful deployment of IoT technologies requires integration on all layers, be it cognitive and semantic aspects, middleware components, services, edge devices/machines and infrastructures. It is intended to be a standalone book in a series that covers the Internet of Things activities of the IERC - Internet of Things European Research Cluster from research to technological innovation, validation and deployment. The book builds on the ideas put forward by the European Research Cluster and the IoT European Platform Initiative (IoT-EPI) and presents global views and state of the art results on the challenges facing the research, innovation, development and deployment of IoT in the next years. The IoT is bridging the physical world with virtual world and requires sound information processing capabilities for the "digital shadows" of these real things. The research and innovation in nanoelectronics, semiconductor, sensors/actuators, communication, analytics technologies, cyber-physical systems, software, swarm intelligent and deep learning systems are essential for the successful deployment of IoT applications. The emergence of IoT platforms with multiple functionalities enables rapid development and lower costs by offering standardised components that can be shared across multiple solutions in many industry verticals. The IoT applications will gradually move from vertical, single purpose solutions to multi-purpose and collaborative applications interacting across industry verticals, organisations and people, being one of the essential paradigms of the digital economy. Many of those applications still have to be identified and involvement of end-users including the creative sector in this innovation is crucial. The IoT applications and deployments as integrated building blocks of the new digital economy are part of the accompanying IoT policy framework to address issues of horizontal nature and common interest (i.e. privacy, end-to-end security, user acceptance, societal, ethical aspects and legal issues) for providing trusted IoT solutions in a coordinated and consolidated manner across the IoT activities and pilots. In this, context IoT ecosystems offer solutions beyond a platform and solve important technical challenges in the different verticals and across verticals. These IoT technology ecosystems are instrumental for the deployment of large pilots and can easily be connected to or build upon the core IoT solutions for different applications in order to expand the system of use and allow new and even unanticipated IoT end uses. Technical topics discussed in the book include: • Introduction• Digitising industry and IoT as key enabler in the new era of Digital Economy• IoT Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda• IoT in the digital industrial context: Digital Single Market• Integration of heterogeneous systems and bridging the virtual, digital and physical worlds• Federated IoT platforms and interoperability• Evolution from intelligent devices to connected systems of systems by adding new layers of cognitive behaviour, artificial intelligence and user interfaces.• Innovation through IoT ecosystems• Trust-based IoT end-to-end security, privacy framework• User acceptance, societal, ethical aspects and legal issues• Internet of Things Application