The following scientific articles have been developed as part of the research and development work within the bIoTope project and are available for download:
Closed-Loop Lifecycle Management of Service and Product in the Internet of Things: Semantic Framework for Knowledge Integration
Abstract: This paper describes our conceptual framework of closed-loop lifecycle information sharing for product-service in the Internet of Things (IoT). The framework is based on the ontology model of product-service and a type of IoT message standard, Open Messaging Interface (O-MI) and Open Data Format (O-DF), which ensures data communication. (1) Background: Based on an existing product lifecycle management (PLM) methodology, we enhanced the ontology model for the purpose of integrating efficiently the product-service ontology model that was newly developed; (2) Methods: The IoT message transfer layer is vertically integrated into a semantic knowledge framework inside which a Semantic Info-Node Agent (SINA) uses the message format as a common protocol of product-service lifecycle data transfer; (3) Results: The product-service ontology model facilitates information retrieval and knowledge extraction during the product lifecycle, while making more information available for the sake of service business creation. The vertical integration of IoT message transfer, encompassing all semantic layers, helps achieve a more flexible and modular approach to knowledge sharing in an IoT environment; (4) Contribution: A semantic data annotation applied to IoT can contribute to enhancing collected data types, which entails a richer knowledge extraction. The ontology-based PLM model enables as well the horizontal integration of heterogeneous PLM data while breaking traditional vertical information silos; (5) Conclusion: The framework was applied to a fictive case study with an electric car service for the purpose of demonstration. For the purpose of demonstrating the feasibility of the approach, the semantic model is implemented in Sesame APIs, which play the role of an Internet-connected Resource Description Framework (RDF) database.
Application of Measurement-Based AHP to Product-Driven System Control
Abstract: This paper presents an application of the measurements-based AHP to define a two-stage algorithm for product-driven systems control, in case of an unexpected event. This algorithm is made of two stages: the first one aims to define which kind of strategy the product should adopt (wait ̧ react by it self or switch back to centralized mode) while the second one helps to choose the most appropriate resource able to fulfill the product requirements. The methodology is detailed on a simple case study.
Open IoT Ecosystem for Sporting Event Management
Abstract: By connecting devices, people, vehicles and infrastructures everywhere in a city, governments and their partners can improve community wellbeing and other economic and financial aspects (e.g., cost and energy savings). Nonetheless, smart cities are complex ecosystems that comprise many different stakeholders (network operators, managed service providers, logistic centers. . . ) who must work together to provide the best services and unlock the commercial potential of the so-called IoT. This is one of the major challenges that faces today’s smart city movement, and the emerging “API economy”. Indeed, while new smart connected objects hit the market every day, they mostly feed “vertical silos” (e.g., vertical apps, siloed apps. . . ) that are closed to the rest of the IoT, thus hampering developers to produce new added value across multiple platforms and/or application domains. Within this context, the contribution of this paper is twofold: (i) present the strategic vision and ambition of the EU to overcome this critical vertical silos’ issue; (ii) introduce the first building blocks underlying an open IoT ecosystem developed as part of an EU (Horizon 2020) projet and a joint project initiative (IoT-EPI). The practicability of this ecosystem, along with a performance analysis, are carried out considering a proof-of-concept for enhanced sporting event management in the context of the forthcoming FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar.
IoT-based Smart Parking System for Sporting Event Management
Abstract: By connecting devices, people, vehicles and infrastructures everywhere in a city, governments and their partners can improve community wellbeing and other economic and financial aspects (e.g., cost and energy savings). Nonetheless, smart cities are complex ecosystems that comprise many different stakeholders (network operators, managed service providers, logistic centers.. .) who must work together to provide the best services and unlock the commercial potential of the IoT. This is one of the major challenges that faces today's smart city movement, and more generally the IoT as a whole. Indeed, while new smart connected objects hit the market every day, they mostly feed " vertical silos " (e.g., vertical apps, siloed apps...) that are closed to the rest of the IoT, thus hampering developers to produce new added value across multiple platforms. Within this context, the contribution of this paper is twofold: (i) present the EU vision and ongoing activities to overcome the problem of vertical silos; (ii) introduce recent IoT standards used as part of a recent Horizon 2020 IoT project to address this problem. The implementation of those standards for enhanced sporting event management in a smart city/government context (FIFA World Cup 2022) is developed, presented, and evaluated as a proof-of-concept.
Knowledge-based Consistency Index for Fuzzy Pairwise Comparison Matrices
Abstract: Fuzzy AHP is today one of the most used Multiple Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) techniques. The main argument to introduce fuzzy set theory within AHP lies in its ability to handle uncertainty and vagueness arising from decision makers (when performing pairwise comparisons between a set of criteria/alternatives). As humans usually reason with granular information rather than precise one, such pairwise comparisons may contain some degree of inconsistency that needs to be properly tackled to guarantee the relevance of the result/ranking. Over the last decades, several consistency indexes designed for fuzzy pairwise comparison matrices (FPCMs) were proposed, as will be discussed in this article. However, for some decision theory specialists, it appears that most of these indexes fail to be properly “axiomatically” founded, thus leading to misleading results. To overcome this, a new index, referred to as KCI (Knowledge-based Consistency Index) is introduced in this paper, and later compared with an existing index that is axiomatically well founded. The comparison results show that (i) both indexes perform similarly from a consistency measurement perspective, but (ii) KCI contributes to significantly reduce the computation time, which can save expert’s time in some MCDM problems.
Towards Semantic Interoperability in an Open IoT Ecosystem for Connected Vehicle Services
Abstract: A present challenge in today’s Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem is to enable interoperability across hetero- geneous systems and service providers. Restricted access to data sources and services limits the capabilities of a smart city to improve social, environmental and economic aspects. Interoperability in the IoT is concerned with both, messaging interfaces and semantic understanding of heterogeneous data. In this paper, the first building blocks of an emerging open IoT ecosystem developed at the EU level are presented. Se- mantic web technologies are applied to the existing messaging components to support and improve semantic interoperability. The approach is demonstrated with a proof-of-concept for connected vehicle services in a smart city setting.
Enriching a Situation Awareness Framework for IoT with Knowledge Base and Reasoning Components
Abstract: The importance of system-level context- and situation awareness increases with the growth of the Internet of Things (IoT). This paper proposes an integrated approach to situation awareness by providing a semantically rich situation model together with reliable situation inference based on Context Spaces Theory (CST) and Situation Theory (ST). The paper discusses benefits of integrating the proposed situation awareness framework with knowledge base and efficient reasoning techniques taking into account uncertainty and incomplete knowledge about situations. The paper discusses advantages and impact of proposed context adaptation in dynamic IoT environments. Practical issues of two-way mapping between IoT messaging standards and CST are also discussed.
PROFICIENT: Productivity Tool for Semantic Interoperability in an Open IoT Ecosystem
Abstract: The Internet of Things (IoT) is promising to open up opportunities for businesses to offer new services to uncover untapped needs. However, before taking advantage of such opportunities, there are still challenges ahead, one of which is the development of strategies to abstract from the heterogeneity of APIs that shape today's IoT. It is becoming increasingly complex for developers and smart connected objects to efficiently discover, parse, aggregate and process data from disparate information systems, as different protocols, data models, and serializations for APIs exist on the market. Standards play an indisputable role in reducing such a complexity, but will not solve all problems related to interoperability. For example, it will remain a permanent need to help and guide data/service providers to efficiently describe the data/services they would like to expose to the IoT. This paper presents PROFICIENT, a productivity tool that fulfills this need, which is showcased and evaluated considering recent open messaging standards and a smart parking scenario.
Open IoT ecosystem for enhanced interoperability in smart cities - Example of Métropole de Lyon
Abstract: The Internet of Things (IoT) has promised a future where everything gets connected. Unfortunately, building a single global ecosystem of Things that communicate with each other seamlessly is virtually impossible today. The reason is that the IoT is essentially a collection of isolated “Intranets of Things”, also referred to as “vertical silos”, which cannot easily and efficiently interact with each other. Smart cities are perhaps the most striking examples of this problem since they comprise a wide range of stakeholders and service providers who must work together, including urban planners, financial organisations, public and private service providers, telecommunication providers, industries, citizens, and so forth. Within this context, the contribution of this paper is threefold: (i) discuss business and technological implications as well as challenges of creating successful open innovation ecosystems, (ii) present the technological building blocks underlying an IoT ecosystem developed in the framework of the EU Horizon 2020 programme, (iii) present a smart city pilot (Heat Wave Mitigation in Métropole de Lyon) for which the proposed ecosystem significantly contributes to improving interoperability between a number of system components, and reducing regulatory barriers for joint service co-creation practices.
