Proximity-Based Federation of Smart Objects: Its Application Framework for Complex Secure Federation Scenarios

Abstract

This paper focuses first on the formal modeling of complex application scenarios using autonomic proximity-based federation among smart objects with wireless network connectivity, and then on a new framework for complex secure federation scenarios. Our modeling consists of three different levels. In the first-level modeling, each smart object is modeled as a set of ports, each of which represents an I/O interface for a function of this smart object to interoperate with some function of another smart object. The federation between a pair of smart objects having a pair of ports of the same type with opposite polarities is modeled as the port matching between these two ports. The second-level modeling describes the dynamic change of the federation structure among smart objects as a graph rewriting system, where each node and each directed link respectively represent a smart object and a connection between two smart objects. The third-level modeling uses a binary autocatalytic-reaction network to describe each complex federation scenario in which more than one federation are involved, and an output federation of a reaction may work either as an input federation of another reaction and/or a catalyst to activate another composition or decomposition reaction. Based on these models previously proposed by the current author, this paper proposes a new simplified application framework for implementing any complex application scenario describable as a binary autocatalytic-reaction network as a graph rewriting system of smart objects, and then proposes a new framework-level solution to the secure federation of smart objects, which is independent from the encryption-based technologies for secure communication between two smart objects.