An Open Virtual Neighbourhood Network to Connect IoT Infrastructures and Smart Objects – VICINITYGlobal IoT Summit (GIoTS-2017), 06-09 June 2017, Geneva, Switzerland.

1. An Open Virtual Neighbourhood Network to
Connect IoT Infrastructures and Smart Objects
– VICINITY
Yajuan Guan1, Juan C. Vasquez1, Josep M. Guerrero1, Natalie Samovich2,
Stefan Vanya3, Viktor Oravec3, Raúl García-Castro4, Fernando Serena4, María
Poveda-Villalón4, Carna Radojicic5, Christopher Heinz5, Christoph Grimm5,
Athanasios Tryferidis6, Dimitrios Tzovaras6, Keith Dickerson7, Marek Paralic8,
Marek Skokan8,Tomas Sabol8
1 Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark.
2 Enercoutim- Associação Empresarial de Energia Solar de Alcoutim, Alcoutim, Portugal.
3 bAvenir, s.r.o., Bratislava, Slovakia.
4 Ontology Engineering Group, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain.
5 Kaiserslautern University of Technology, Kaiserslautern, German.
6 CERTH/ITI - Centre for Research and Technology Hellas/Information Technologies Institute, Thessaloniki, Greece.
7 Climate Associates Ltd, Suffolk, UK.
8 InterSoft A.S., Košice, Slovakia.
1

2. Outline
 Introduction
 Concept Requirements, Barriers and Opportunities
 Standardization Analysis
 Interoperability as a Service
 Ontologies
 Value-added Services
 Integrated IoT Infrastructures
 Test Labs and User cases
 Conclusion
2

3. • Lack of IoT protocol interoperability,
• Interconnected smart objects of different owners require data sharing that raises
serious privacy issues,
• IoT component vendors might be reluctant to share interface specifications,
• Large-scale integration imposes rules that are disadvantageous for particular
participants.
Introduction
 Isolated islands in the
global IoT landscape
while inter-connection
of these islands might
bring significant value-
added.
 Exploitation of these
benefits is however
inhibited by various
interoperability barriers
that are present in the
current IoT ecosystems
 Present IoT landscape
rather looks like a set of
isolated islands shipped
by different vendors
serving different
domains.
3
IoT ecosystems IoT Applications Devices

4. Introduction
 VICINITY will provide an IoT platform that can connect isolated islands, and will allow
integration of end-users and creation of new business models. VICINITY will pave the
way for large-scale demonstration of the applicability of the solution in different use
cases that implement and demonstrate different value-added services facilitated by
VICINITY platform.
4

5.  VICINITY presents a virtual
neighborhood concept. The users are
allowed to configure installations and
integrate standards according to the
preferred services, as well as being able
to fully control their privacy.
 Data exchange between different
devices is handled through the VICINITY
open interoperability gateway, which
reduce the need for having a technical
background in order to exploit to the
VICINITY ecosystem.
 An API will allow for easy development
of an adapter to the platform.
 Connecting to detect IoT infrastructures
is handled by the open VICINITY auto
discovery device. The device will
automatically discover the smart
objects.
Introduction
5

6. Outline
 Introduction
 Concept Requirements, Barriers and Opportunities
 Standardization Analysis
 Interoperability as a Service
 Ontologies
 Value-added Services
 Integrated IoT Infrastructures
 Test Labs and User cases
 Conclusion
6

7. Requirements, Barriers
and Opportunities
• ‘resistance to change’ can be expected from strong market players
with existing proprietary products.
• Potential loss of privacy and security, compatibility, complexity and
legislation are voiced as potential weaknesses on consumer side.
• The four domains are being directly
affected by the ongoing new market
design in energy sector, new models
introduction through digitalization in
health and building domains and
related customers’ requirements
driven changes in transport domain.
• Main strengths in VICINITY systems
are in the integration of various
standards and protocols, allowing
innovation and offering a product
which will be efficient, time and cost
saving and which will minimize
environmental impact and provide
better quality of life.
7

8. Outline
 Introduction
 Concept Requirements, Barriers and Opportunities
 Standardization Analysis
 Interoperability as a Service
 Ontologies
 Value-added Services
 Integrated IoT Infrastructures
 Test Labs and User cases
 Conclusion
8

9. Open Standards
in IoT Deployments
Growth Costs
27%
30% Identified more than 20
organizations
Almost 100 bodies
developing standards
Participating
in Working Groups
9
Standardization Analysis
* ETSI IoT/M2M
• Build a service
• Create some interoperability

10. Standardization Analysis
Communication level: A limited number of standards including WiFi and ZigBee,
and exchanging data between IoT devices at this level. Not the problem.
Challenge : Discovery and classification of services and the communication at the
semantic layer that is summarized under the term M2M.
VICINITY partners have been developing specific ontologies for the Building and
Energy domains as extensions to the Smart Appliances REFerence ontology (SAREF)
10

11. Outline
 Introduction
 Concept Requirements, Barriers and Opportunities
 Standardization Analysis
 Interoperability as a Service
 Ontologies
 Value-added Services
 Integrated IoT Infrastructures
 Test Labs and User cases
 Conclusion
11

12. Interoperability Challenge
 Lack of an IoT protocol for interoperability as well as dealing with
security and privacy issues.
 Due to the heterogeneity of IoT ecosystems, which are built on different, often
proprietary, standards.
 However, aiming to transform such ecosystems toward new standards requires
significant change management efforts regarding IoT users and operators.
 A main idea in our approach is to allow IoT operators and users to continue
using their tools, specifications and processes and to set the conditions of their
collaboration upon their interests.
Interoperability as a Service
12

13. VICINITYneighbourhood manager
- Value added services
- Access rights to data
- Interoperability functionality
VICINITY
Agent
Gateway
VICINITY
Agent
Mobile
device
...
...
...
(P2P exchange of data)
ZigBee ... WLAN ... TinyMesh ...
• Hardware: a gateway or a mobile device which are connected to a VICINITY
neighborhood manager in the cloud (higher layers).
• Logical: user defines access rights to data from its “things” at the neighborhood
manager.
• Local gateway: agents share the data in a P2P way only with those external
partners that have permission.
• Agent also takes care of enriching data with semantic information, or
implements value-added services.
Interoperability as a Service
13

14. Virtual neighbourhood between IoT ecosystems in P2P network
• Decentralized interoperability
• IoT ecosystems owners create
Virtual neighbourhood with
other ecosystems in VICINITY
P2P network to share their
devices without loosing control
over them.
Interoperability as a Service
14

15. IoT ecosystems owners can use Value added services over shared
devices in neighbourhood using semantic interoperability.
Interoperability as a Service
15

16. VICINITY Architecture context
VICINITY brings (cross-domain) interoperability as a service to unlock stakeholders’
collaboration.
Interoperability as a Service
16

17. VICINITY Architecture design concepts
VICINITY Provide interoperability for value added services and
integrated IoT infrastructures to support existing and novel
business processes.
Interoperability as a Service
17

18. VICINITY Cloud
 Infrastructure that provides Interoperability as a Service itself, by
providing services that enable:
 Configuring the virtual neighborhood of integrated infrastructures and
value-added services.
 Semantic search (discovery) of IoT objects in the virtual neighborhood
composed by VICINITY Nodes.
 Characterization of new IoT objects and generation of the necessary thing
descriptions based on the VICINITY ontologies.
 Configuring the VICINITY Nodes based on IoT object description, sharing
access rules, and configuration of the communication with the integrated
infrastructure or value-added services.
 Auditing changes and events in the virtual neighborhood including user
notification of such important events.
Interoperability as a Service
18

19. VICINITY P2P Network
 provides a closed and secure common communication network for
the VICINITY Nodes and VICINITY Cloud to exchange user data
between the Nodes based on the share access rules defined in the
Cloud services, and control and configuration messages between
the Nodes and Cloud.
Interoperability as a Service
VICINITY Nodes
 Set of software components providing different services to
integrate IoT infrastructures and/or value added services into the
VICINITY Cloud.
19

20. Outline
 Introduction
 Concept Requirements, Barriers and Opportunities
 Standardization Analysis
 Interoperability as a Service
 Ontologies
 Value-added Services
 Integrated IoT Infrastructures
 Test Labs and User cases
 Conclusion
20

21. Ontologies
 The VICINITY ontologies are formal in the sense of following Description Logics
and being implemented in the W3C Web Ontology Language standard OWL.
 The conceptualization to be shared among the VICINITY components and plugged
systems will cover different domains of interest ranging from horizontal domains
like time and space to specific definitions need within the VICINITY ecosystem.
 For this reason, the VICINITY approach is based on a modular ontology network in
which existing standard ontologies will be reused whenever possible.
21

22. Ontology Network
Ontologies
22
Domain-specific ontological
requirements:
1) cross-domain ontologies
(horizontal domains) addressing
the modeling of general
concepts like time, space, web
things, among others, that would
be reused and probably
extended by
2) the VICINITY platform oriented
ontology that will represent the
information needed to exchange
IoT descriptor data between
peers and that would be
extended by
3) domain oriented ontologies that
would cover vertical domains
such as health, transport,
buildings, etc.
Available:
Developed
Reused
Non-functional requirements:
• Reuse
• Modularity
• Extensibility
• Good practices

23. VICINITY ontology network http://vicinity.iot.linkeddata.es
Ontologies
23

24. WoT VICINITY ontology
http://iot.linkeddata.es/def/wot/
Ontologies
24

25. Core VICINITY ontology (I) http://iot.linkeddata.es/def/core/
Ontologies
25

26. http://iot.linkeddata.es/def/core/
Core VICINITY ontology (II)
Ontologies

27. Ontologies
WoT Mappings ontology
http://iot.linkeddata.es/def/wot-mappings/
27

28. Outline
 Introduction
 Concept Requirements, Barriers and Opportunities
 Standardization Analysis
 Interoperability as a Service
 Ontologies
 Value-added Services
 Integrated IoT Infrastructures
 Test Labs and User cases
 Conclusion
28

29. • Customers will have opportunity to receive certain added value
• Providers can benefit from increased rapport with their clients
generating additional revenue for them.
• Value-added services over IoT complete the services loop in the
global software services industry.
• However, these offerings do not succeed in isolation and need to have
a robust foundation. 29
Value-added services

30. Value-added services
• This data cloud and globally accessible network of things, users, and
consumers, enables a global infrastructure to generate new services,
allowing anyone to create content and applications for global users
that would not be obvious without the level of connectivity and
interoperability provided by solutions such as VICINITY. 30

31. VICINITY Node
VICINITY Node
…
VICINITY
P2P network
VICINITY
Communicatio
n Node
VICINITY
Gateway API
VICINITY
Communication
Node
VICINITY
Agent
Value-Added
Service
VICINITY Cloud
VICINITY
Communication
Node
Each Value-Added service:
- Requires a VICINITY Node to connect to VICINITY Cloud
- Connects through a VICINITY Agent (with corresponding
VICINITY Adapter implementation)
- Can access data from other IoT ecosystems (once partnership is established)
through corresponding VICINITY Nodes over the P2P network
IoT ecosystems IoT Applications Devices
Value-added services
31

32. VICINITY Node
VICINITY Node
…
VICINITY
P2P network
VICINITY
Communicatio
n Node
VICINITY
Gateway API
VICINITY
Communication
Node
VICINITY
Agent
Value-Added
Service
VICINITY Cloud
VICINITY
Communication
Node
Each Value-Added service:
- Requires a VICINITY Node to connect to VICINITY Cloud
- Connects through a VICINITY Agent (with corresponding
VICINITY Adapter implementation)
- Can access data from other IoT ecosystems (once partnership is established)
through corresponding VICINITY Nodes over the P2P network
IoT ecosystems IoT Applications Devices
Value-added services
32

33. Outline
 Introduction
 Concept Requirements, Barriers and Opportunities
 Standardization Analysis
 Interoperability as a Service
 Ontologies
 Value-added Services
 Integrated IoT Infrastructures
 Test Labs and User cases
 Conclusion
33

34. Integrated IoT Infrastructures
Key role in integration of IoT infrastructures and Service platforms are
system integrators who adapts VICINITY into local ecosystems through
standardized Open Gateway API
34

35. Outline
 Introduction
 Concept Requirements, Barriers and Opportunities
 Standardization Analysis
 Interoperability as a Service
 Ontologies
 Value-added Services
 Integrated IoT Infrastructures
 Test Labs and User cases
 Conclusion
35

36. Test Labs and Use Cases
.
36

37. Test Labs and Use Case
 AAU IoT Microgrid Laboratory (Denmark)
Integrate developed components, smart devices,
advanced control, and energy management
systems according to different VICINITY IoT use-
cases with various domains, such as e-health,
transport, buildings and energy.
.
37
 ATOS IoE Laboratory (Spain)
Address technological contributions in the scope
of IoT components, connectivity, platforms and
services integration, fostering the usage of open
and standard technologies, while also ensuring
wider adoption and implementation of the IoT
paradigm.

38. Test Labs
 CERTH Test Laboratory (Greece)
Comprise the Institute’s main offices and a
dedicated experimental Smart House. Both
buildings are equipped with numerous IoT sensors
and automation infrastructure to facilitate the
experimentation and test operation of the VICINITY
framework at the early stages of its development.
 UNIKL Test Laboratory (Germany)
.
With the Test Lab at University of
Kaiserslautern (UNIKL), this will be met to an
extent, that “virtual” devices are connected
to the VICINITY Server.
Performance, scalability and runtime behavior
will be evaluated with the ultimate goal of
simulating a “virtual Oslo”.
38

39. User cases
 Intelligent Building System (Norway)
Targeting the interconnection of smart
objects under a “virtual neighbourhood”
of intelligent buildings, addressing both
geographic proximity and the use of
energy profiles.
.
 Smart Parking (Norway )
Demonstration for offering an extendable
service for sharing available parking space
(apartment buildings, offices, theater and
amusement activities with less and less
outdoor parking space).
39

40.  eHealth and Assistive Living Home (Greece)
Demonstrate how sensors, actuators
and integrated communication
devices installed at home can provide
assistive living to elderly people and
people with long terms needs.
 Smart Energy System (Portugal)
Transversal energy domain and municipal
buildings management.
Demonstrate value added services that
could be enabled through the VICINITY
framework based on renewable energy
generation infrastructure.
40
User cases

41. Outline
 Introduction
 Concept Requirements, Barriers and Opportunities
 Standardization Analysis
 Interoperability as a Service
 Ontologies
 Value-added Services
 Integrated IoT Infrastructures
 Test Labs and User case
 Conclusion
41

42. Conclusion
 VICINITY project will finally provide the owners of connected IoT
infrastructures with decentralized interoperability. It connects different
smart objects into a “social network” called virtual neighbourhood.
 The VICINITY project is divided into five phases, including the Definition
of Requirement, Standard Analysis & Framework Design, Platform
Implementation, System Integration & Lab Testing, Pilot Installation,
Demonstration & Evaluation, and horizontal activities.
 Value-added services in renewable energy generation and consumption
spectrum, AI-based services within health data analysis and the transport
domain and other extended value added services will be explored and
demonstrated.
42

43. 43
Thanks for your attention!
Yajuan Guan Aalborg Univeristy ygu@et.aau.dk
http://www.microgrids.et.aau.dk
http://vicinity2020.eu/vicinity/