The document discusses developing a domain model for Internet of Things (IoT) applications. It identifies common IoT behaviors like data collection, sense-compute-actuate, and intermittent sensing. An IoT domain model is presented that captures key concepts like entities, sensors, actuators, devices, and software components, as well as their relationships. The domain model provides benefits like a common understanding of IoT terminology, modeling invariant properties, and enabling modular application design.

1. Towards Application
Development for the Internet of
Things
Pankesh Patel, Animesh Pathak, Thiago Teixeira, and Valérie Issarny
ARLES project-team
INRIA Paris-Rocquencourt
Lisbon, December 12, 2011

2. ``Things’’: Salient Features
• May have sensors attached.
• May have actuator attached.
• Can communicate with other Things.
• Can be involved in the information
exchange between real/physical and
``digital/virtual’’ world. [IoTRoadMap]
[IoTRoadMap] De Saint-Exupery, Internet of things, strategic research roadmap, Research report 2009. (URL:
http://ec. europa. eu/information—society/policy/rfid/documents/in—. cerp. Pdf )
2

3. Internet of Things (IoT)
``A global network infrastructure that connects physical and virtual
things” [CASAGRAS Project].
[CASAGRAS Project] : http://www.rfidglobal.eu/userfiles/documents/CASAGRAS26022009.pdf
Figure credit : http://www.leaderstudio.net/iot/images/internet-of-things.jpg
3

4. IoT– Application Domains
• Intelligent buildings
• Automatic energy metering
• Home automation
• Wireless monitoring
• Medical technology, Healthcare,
• Retail, Logistics, Supply chain management
• Environment monitoring
• …
4

5. Outline
• Motivation
• Related work
• Initial research contributions
• Behaviours in IoT applications
• IoT domain model
• Related work in IoT domain model
• Concluding Remarks
• Future work
5

6. Motivation
• Domain experts have to deal with
• low-level system issues
• low-level design of distributed protocols
• Requires considerable CS background
• Shifts their focus from application logic
6

7. Previously addressed in:
Wireless Sensor Network (WSN)
• Hundreds to thousands of largely similar devices
• Typically deployed in limited geographical area
• Focus mostly on scale
Figure credit : http://www.cs.ucsb.edu/~nchohan/rrc/, http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~agr/projects/saga/
7

8. Previously addressed in:
Pervasive/ Ubiquitous computing
• Focus mostly on heterogeneous devices.
Figure credit :
http://203crjameshowe.blogspot.com/2008/10/203cr-designing-for-usability-2-studio.html
8

9. Origin of Challenges in Internet of Things
• Heterogeneity
• Diverse devices, many manufactures, different data types
• Large scale
• Millions of devices , very large amount of data, millions
of users
9

10. Goal of Our Research
``Provide programming abstractions that allow
domain experts in the IoT to specify applications
involving rich interactions among a large number of
heterogeneous devices’’.
10

11. First step : Important Initial Questions
1. What are the key concepts in the domain ?
2. What are the associations (or relationships)
among identified concepts?
Answer : Domain Model (DM)[OldeldDM]
[OldeldDM] P. Oldeld. Domain Modelling. Technical report, Appropriate Process
Group, 2002.
11

12. DM Benefits :
Creates Common Understanding
• IoT terms - with different meaning by different people
• leads to confusion and hinders scientific discourse
[Haller2010, IoTA]
• DM provides common lexicon
• Useful to domain experts, programmers , researchers.
[Haller2010] S. Haller. The Things in the Internet of Things. IoT 2010 Poster Session.
Tokyo, Japan, November, 2010.
[IoTA] IoT-A Project: http://www.iot-a.eu
12

13. DM Benefits :
Enables Modular Design
• DM clearly identifies capabilities of each concepts.
• Application requirements tend to arrive in terms of
behaviour [OldeldDM]. They can be broken down into
concepts.
Computational
Sensor Physical entity
and Actuation
Sense the temeprature of a room and keep it steady
13

14. DM Benefits :
Models Invariant Properties
• Models invariant associations [IoTA, SENSEI] – not
change from one application to other.
1 Hosts *
Device: Sensor:
Application 1 Smart Phone Light Sensor
Device: 1 Hosts * Sensor:
Application 2 sunSPOT
Temperature
Sensor
Invariant
Association
[IoTA] IoT-A Project: http://www.iot-a.eu/
[SENSEI] SENSEI project: http://www.sensei-project.eu/
14

15. Our approach of Domain Model
Construction App 11
App 10
App 1
App 12
Applications App 8 App 9
App 2
App 6
Classification App 7
App 3
of applications App 4 App 5
into behaviours
Behaviour1
Behaviour3
c1 c2 c5
Behaviour2 c3 c4 c6
Identification
of concepts
c7
Our Domain Model
16

16. Behaviours in the Internet of
Things
17

17. Data Collection
• Smart things interact with user by stating information
about themselves.
• Periodically
• on event
• on demand
• Found in
• Patient monitoring [Niyato2009]
• Food supply chain [Dada2008]
• …
[Niyato2009] D. Niyato, E. Hossain, and S. Camorlinga. Remote patient monitoring service using heterogeneous wireless access
networks: architecture and optimization. Selected Areas in Communications, IEEE Journal on, 27(4):412-423, may 2009.
[Dada2008] A. Dada and F. Thiesse. Sensor applications in the supply chain: The example of quality-based issuing of perishables.
In Proceedings of the 1st international conference on The internet of things, pages 140-154. Springer-Verlag, 2008.
18

18. Example: Talking with Plants [Botanicalls]
• Plant notifies a user on his cell phone about
whether it needs water.
• Moisture sensor, Botanicalls device, Botanicalls
service, Mobile phone, Twitter service, User
• Also, precision agriculture [PresAg]
[Botanicall] http://www.botanicalls.com/
[PresAg] http://www.precisionagriculture.com.au/

19. Sense - Compute - Actuate
• Smart things interact with each other at either in the
local network or through the Internet.
• They take corrective actions [Mattern2010] with no human
originator, recipient or intermediary.
• It may prompt users as required.
• Found in
• Optimizing power consumption costs [Buckl2009]
• Work place safety [SENSEI]
• …
[Mattern2010] F. Mattern and C. Floerkemeier. From the Internet of Computers to the Internet of Things.
From active data management to event-based systems and more, Springer pages 242- 259, 2010.
[Buckl209] C. Buckl, S. Sommer, A. Scholz, A. Knoll, A. Kemper, J. Heuer, and A. Schmitt. Services to
the eld: An approach for resource constrained sensor/actor networks. In International Conference on
Advanced Information Networking and Applications Workshops, pages 476-481. IEEE, 2009.
20

20. Sense-Compute-Actuate Example:
maintain temperature in room.[ParaHVAC]
Temperature
node
Heater
User enters
Preferences
[ParaHVAC] M. Feldmeier and J. Paradiso. Personalized HVAC control system.
In Internet of Things (IOT), pages 1 -8, 29-dec., 2010.
21

21. Intermittent Sensing
• Centred around tag
• RFID
• (1D) Barcode
• QR- code
• Mostly in applications where things have an information
shadow[ValhoIoT] on the Internet
• Found in
• Tourist information[RellTourist ]
• Mobile ticketing[BroPerci]
• ...
[ValhoIoT] C. A. Valhouli. The Internet of Things: Networked Objects and Smart Devices. Technical report, the hammersmithgroup, February
2011.
[RellTourist D. Reilly, M. Welsman-Dinelle, C. Bate, and K. Inkpen. Just point and click?: using handhelds to interact with paper maps. In
Proceedings of the 7th international conference on Human computer interaction with mobile devices & services, pages 239-242.
ACM, 2005.
[BroPerci] G. Broll, E. Rukzio, M. Paolucci, M. Wagner, A. Schmidt, and H. Humann. Perci: Pervasive service interaction with the Internet of
things. Internet Computing, IEEE, 13(6):74- 81, 2009.
22

22. Intermittent Sensing example:
Reviewing consumer’s product [my2cents]
When user wants to When user wants to read
write other users’ comments, scan
comments, writes barcode, queries to storage
and sends to service.
2 storage service 3
1
User scans barcode
through mobile device
[my2cents] S. Karpischek and F. Michahelles. my2cents-Digitizing
consumer opinions and comments about retail products. In
Internet of Things (IOT), 2010, pages 1-7. IEEE, 2010.
23

23. Domain model of IoT
24

24. Basic IoT Interaction
Entity of real world objects.
Interest
e.g. room, book, plant
User
30

25. Sensing
Observable property
Entity of 1 Consists-of 1..*
Interest
Phenomenon of entity of interest
1..* e.g. temperature
Observes
1 *
Produces 1
Raw data Sensor
1
Accessed-by
1
Sensor
driver
Representation of sensor 1
generates
observation, without no 1
explicit meaning. E.g. 25 Sensor
measurement
Attach metadata to raw data.
e.g. unit of measurement, time
User of sensing
31

26. Actuation
1..*
Entity of 1 Consists-of 1..* affects
Phenomenon
Interest
1..*
Observes
1 * *
Produces 1 1 1
Perfoms
Raw data Sensor Actuator Action
1 1
Accessed-by
actuated-by 1
1
Actuator Sensor
driver driver
Translates actuation 1
1
generates
command and triggers consumes
1 1
the actuator.
Command Sensor
measurement
instruction that describes a
desired outcome.
e.g. Switch ON heater
User
32

27. Sensing and Actuation
Entity of 1 Consists-of 1..* 1..*
affects
Interest Phenomenon
1..*
Observes
1 * *
Produces 1 1 1
Perfoms
Raw data Sensor Actuator Action
1 Accessed-by 1
Extends Extends actuated-by 1
1
Resource Sensor
Actuator
driver driver
1
It is a conceptual representation 1 generates
consumes
of a sensor or an actuator. 1 1
Command Sensor
measurement
Extends Extends
It is any data that is meaningful
by itself.
Information
User
33

28. Role of Device as Resource Host
1 Consists-of 1..* 1..*
Entity of affects
Phenomenon
Interest
1..*
Observes
1 * *
Produces 1 1 1
Perfoms
Raw data Sensor Actuator Action
1 Accessed-by 1
Extends Extends actuated-by 1
1
Resource Sensor
Actuator
driver driver
*
1 Hosts 1
Device 1 generates
consumes
1 1
Command Sensor
Provides the ability of measurement
communication.
e.g. mobile phone, tag Extends Extends
readers, personal computer
Information
User
34

29. Role of Device as software host
1..*
Entity of 1 Consists-of 1..* affects
Phenomenon
Interest
1..*
Observes
1 * *
Produces 1 1 1
Perfoms
Raw data Sensor Actuator Action
1 1
Accessed-by
Extends Extends actuated-by 1
1
Resource Sensor
Actuator
driver driver
*
1 Hosts 1
Device 1 generates
consumes
1 1 1
Sensor
Command
measurement
1..*
Runs-on Software
Component
Extends Extends
User Information
36

30. Software Components
Encapsulate system’s
functionalities ,
Provides interface Communicates-with
* 1 consumes 1..*
1 Software
Traditional 1 generates 1 Information
Component
Internet concepts
Extends
Extends
Extends Extends
End-user Storage Computational
Driver
Application Service service
1 1
Interacts Provides
Extends Extends
with access to
1 1..*
Sensor Actuator
User Store Driver Driver
``Things’’- oriented
concepts
37

31. Our IoT Domain Model
1..*
Entity of 1 Consists-of 1..* affects
Phenomenon
Interest
1..*
Observes
1 * *
Produces 1 1 1
Perfoms
Raw data Sensor Actuator Action
1 1
Accessed-by
Extends Extends actuated-by 1
1
Resource Sensor
Actuator
1 Hosts driver
* driver
Device
Communicates-with 1
1 generates
1 consumes
1 1
Runs-on 1..*
Software
Command Sensor
Component
extends measurement
End-user Storage Computational
Application Service Driver
Service Extends Extends
Information
User Store
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32. Related Work on IoT Domain Model
• Haller [Haller2010] has defined the relationship among
things, devices, resources, and services.
• Aim: common understanding
• We add an explicit “user”, traditional internet concepts.
• A more detailed model is in [IoTA2011]
• Direct association between user and physical entity
• We add software components between them
[Haller2010] S. Haller. The Things in the Internet of Things. IoT 2010 Poster
Session. Tokyo, Japan, November, 2010.
[IoTA2011] www.iot-a.eu/
39

33. Concluding Remarks
• Developed a better understanding of IoT challenges
• Identified IoT application behaviours
• Captured the concepts (physical world and traditional
internet) and associations of IoT domain
• Domain Model benefits
• Captured terminology of IoT concepts.
• Modeled invariant properties of IoT domain
• Modular design
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34. Future work
• Make the domain model more complete
• Expand the scope of the application survey
• Explore sub-class of ``communicate-with’’ association:
Publish/subscribe, procedure call, notification, etc.
• Explore effect of large scale
• Propose IoT Programming Abstractions
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35. Merci, thank you, obrigado, , σας ευχαριστώ, grazie, 謝
謝, dank u, danke, gracias, , ありがと
う, , .
Thanks for listening me 
email: pankesh.patel@inria.fr
•This work was supported in part by the European
Commission FP7 CHOReOS and NESSOS projects, and
the ANR Murphy project.
• The authors are grateful to the reviewers for their
helpful comments.