InterX: A service interoperability gateway for heterogeneous smart objects

Abstract

Due to the advances in wireless networking and microelectronics, more and more smart objects are equipped with wireless networking as well as high computing capability. Heterogeneity of service protocols inhibits the interoperation among smart objects using different service protocols. Existing works overcome the heterogeneity by assuming that service protocols used are known in advance so that components necessary for interoperations can be deployed before runtime. This assumption prevents existing works from being applied to situations where a user wants to spontaneously configure her smart objects to interoperate with smart objects found nearby without (or with minimal) user intervention. In this paper, we propose a service interoperability gateway that discovers service protocols used in a given environment, finds smart objects using these protocols, and instantiates proxies for interoperability between smart objects.