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Platform, Tools Developed to Network Smart Objects

Home networking (Research Council of Norway/Shutterstock)

(Research Council of Norway/Shutterstock)

Researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim have devised a platform and tools to connect home and office objects with built-in intelligence. The Infrastructure for Integrated Services (ISIS) offers a common framework for developing and distributing applications in what the researchers call the Internet of Things.

ISIS addresses a need to connect everyday objects to several different communication services, sensors and other components. NTNU postdoctoral researcher Frank Alexander Kraemer, one of ISIS’s designers, says at the same time the network need to respond quickly to changes and the actions of users. “This requires very good control over concurrence in the system,” says Kraemer, “which can be difficult to achieve with normal programming.”

The ISIS platform consists of a programming tool for developers, called Arctis and a Web-based ISIS Store for downloading applications. Arctis is based on the creation of applications by connecting building blocks, thus Arctis offers a library of building blocks for different domains. The ISIS store offers a site for developers to publish — and end-users to download — apps and widgets for connected devices, such as a weather station and music controller for iTunes.

The networking on ISIS is performed by a collaboration system called the ICE composition engine. The open-source ICE manages the communication between home devices and keeps track of any updates. The system is installed on a modem, decoder, or adapter and provides the user with a local gateway which keeps the objects connected even when the user is offline.

The Norwegian mobile telecomm company Telenor Group is becoming an ISIS operator and connection between developers and end-users, both home and business. The company is offering its own app store, as well as a software program called Puzzle that acts as an interface to the ICE system.

Read more: Sensors, Computer Controls Reduce Building HVAC Energy

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