SONICA : service oriented network interoperability for component adaptation

Recent advances in multimedia network systems have led to the development of a new generation of applications that associate the use of various multimedia objects. The connection of audio and video devices through high speed multimedia pervasive networks will make the use of these systems more convenient. For example, many home appliances, such as video cameras, display monitors, video recorders and audio systems, will be equipped with a communication interface in the near future. Recently some platforms (i.e. UPnP, Jini, HAVi and so on) have been proposed for constructing multimedia pervasive networks, however, there are still some issues to be solved before we can achieve various services that connect different equipment via the network. In case of UPnP based on SOAP, it is necessary to standardize a way to control any feature of a new (undefined) device connected to the network and update the software in the controller device. Meanwhile, Jini based on RMI technology, or HAVi developed for intelligent AV equipments, has a mechanism to upload software module from a new device connected to the network to the controller device. Although standardizing the new devices' features is not needed, HAVi devices require high CPU power and large memory. Considering that the targets of these home appliances are embedded systems, this situation raises issues of software and hardware complexity, cost, power consumption, and so on. In this study, we developed SONICA, a service oriented network architecture for the control and management of home appliances to address the issues described above.