Towards the Internet of Things: Integration of Web Services and Field Level Devices

Handling the development and management of networked embedded systems becomes more and more complex with the increasing number and diversity of connected components. The challenges encountered during application development can be mastered by applying a model driven development approach and the concepts of service oriented architectures (SOA). Both development strategies are well established in their domains and, in combination, provide an excellent base for the development of networked embedded systems. However embedded networks nowadays seldom operate in isolation. The increasing interaction between embedded devices and Web based services, as envisioned by the Internet of Things, requires interfaces that provide Internet based access from and to services in the embedded network. We propose a development platform for embedded networks that eases the creation and maintenance of embedded networks and supports a seamless interaction between services from the embedded world and Web services through a bridge component. Despite creating a mere interface between the embedded world and Web services, this paper discusses how the embedded system can also be integrated semantically.