"True Self-Configuration for the Internet of Things" is the title of the demo that SPITFIRE partners, among them the IBR Algorithms group, presented at the Internet of Things 2012 conference in Wuxi, China. It was part of the first "IoT Challenge" competition, which called for highly innovative research and practical solutions to real-world problems. European project SPITFIRE submitted an abstract describing a unified approach enabling self-configuring and self-describing IoT devices, to let them learn about their environment and purpose without manual intervention, to link them with external data sources from anywhere in the world, and to provide the foundations on which to build innovative applications using standardized and easy-to-use tools. Some building blocks of this solution are state-of-the-art technologies - such as the Resource Description Framework (RDF) to represent semantic information, the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) to offer services from resource-constrained devices, and 6LowPAN to connect them to IPv6 networks. Other blocks represent original SPITFIRE research, such as a fuzzy-set-based automatism by which devices can learn about their environment by correlating their sensor input to that of other, nearby, devices. The SPITFIRE partners were able to integrate all of these components to a unified system that is much more than the sum of its parts - it is an Internet of truly self-configuring and incredibly versatile Things. The beauty and novelty of the SPITFIRE approach also appealed to the competition organizers, who included it in the selection of three outstanding submissions to be demoed on stage, to an audience of over 300 IoT specialists from both industry and academia. Three SPITFIRE researchers - Oliver Kleine and Cuong Truong from the Universität zu Lübeck, and Alexander Kröller (TU Braunschweig) - presented a system prototype using an appealing application scenario: A new, unconfigured device is installed in a household. It automatically connects to the Internet and announces itself and its properties. From correlation with sensor readings from other devices, it infers its location within the house - in a semantically meaningful way, resulting in the correct room description. The owner can then use it in easy-to-setup mashup applications, where he defines triggers and activities using the semantic descriptions from the devices and from external data sources such as his calender, a weather forecast, or global fact databases. After combining votes from a jury and from the audience, the organizers awarded SPITFIRE with a well-deserved third prize. Given that no 1st prize was awarded, this means SPITFIRE came in second in this highly competitive and prestigious competition. The SPITFIRE partners are thankful and proud for this recognition of their work. A vision shared by a team of excellent researchers is becoming reality, and it is incredibly rewarding to see it convincing others as well. SPITFIRE wishes to thank the many people who made the demo possible, most prominently Christian Renner, Cuong Truong, Richard Mietz (Institute for Computer Engineering, Universität zu Lübeck, Germany), Dennis Boldt, Oliver Kleine (Institute for Telematics, Universität zu Lübeck, Germany), and Dimitrios Amaxilatis (Computer Technology Institute, Greece), who were most involved in the development work in preparation for the demo. A detailed description of the demo and its technologies can be found in the accompanying paper: Ioannis Chatzigiannakis, Henning Hasemann, Marcel Karnstedt, Oliver Kleine, Alexander Kröller, Myriam Leggieri, Dennis Pfisterer, Kay Römer, and Cuong Truong: True Self-Configuration for the Internet of Things. Proceedings of the 2012 International Conference on the Internet of Things, Wuxi, China, pages 13-19. IEEE Press, 2012. |