Open Service Gateway Initiative Framework Research Articles

Cyber-physical manufacturing systems: An architecture for sensor integration, production line simulation and cloud services

The pillars of Industry 4.0 require the integration of a modern smart factory, data storage in the Cloud, access to the Cloud for data analytics, and information sharing at the software level for simulation and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) capabilities. The resulting cyber-physical system (CPS) is often termed the cyber-physical manufacturing system, and it has become crucial to cope with this increased system complexity and to attain the desired performances. However, since a great number of old production systems are based on monolithic architectures with limited external communication ports and reduced local computational capabilities, it is difficult to ensure such production lines are compliant with the Industry 4.0 pillars. A wireless sensor network is one solution for the smart connection of a production line to a CPS elaborating data through cloud computing. The scope of this research work lies in developing a modular software architecture based on the open service gateway initiative framework, which is able to seamlessly integrate both hardware and software wireless sensors, send data into the Cloud for further data analysis and enable both HIL and cloud computing capabilities. The CPS architecture was initially tested using HIL tools before it was deployed within a real manufacturing line for data collection and analysis over a period of two months.

An IP Multimedia Subsystem Services Proxy Gateway Based on a JAVA Dynamic Module System

By virtue of the rapid development of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT), people have owned various devices connected to the Internet to enjoy various emerging application services, such as multimedia related services. IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is the integration platform for multimedia application services and provides a rich feature set of converged services in the Next Generation Network (NGN). IMS services are accessed by a user anytime and anywhere through his/her personal self IMS device, e.g., mobile device, equipped with a Universal Subscriber Identity Module (USIM) card. People have owned various devices connected to the Internet at homes or offices. However, some devices can not access IMS services without USIM cards embedded, which is called non-IMS devices. People wish that more devices without USIM cards embedded should be connected to the Internet on which IMS services are accessed in addition to the mobile devices equipped with USIM cards. Accordingly, we propose an Open Service Gateway Initiative (OSGi)-based IMS service gateway, in which OSGi technology is the dynamic module system for JAVA. The proposed gateway is authorized by a personal self IMS device such that IMS services are accessed by non-IMS devices, in this paper. Moreover, these non-IMS devices rely on different networks to access technologies and network protocols and the IMS service gateway proposed here adopts the OSGi framework for no problem of integration.

Seamless integration of heterogeneous devices and access control in smart homes and its evaluation

ABSTRACTThe recent trend of ubiquitous access to embedded physical devices over the Internet as well as increasing penetration of wireless protocols such as ZigBee has raised attention to smart homes. These systems consist of sensors, devices and smart appliances that can be monitored and controlled remotely by human users and cloud services. However, the lack of a de facto communication standard for smart homes creates a barrier against the interoperability of devices from different vendors. We address this challenge by proposing a holistic and extensible software architecture that seamlessly integrates heterogeneous protocol- and vendor-specific devices and services, while making these services securely available over the Internet. Our architecture is developed on top of the Open Services Gateway initiative framework and incorporates a semantic model of a smart home system. As a result, we come closer to semantic interoperability – the ability to integrate new applications and drivers into the deployed system during runtime. Furthermore, we integrate a new access control model for specific smart home scenarios. As a proof of our concept, we demonstrate the seamless semantic discovery of home devices at runtime by integrating several protocols including X10, Insteon, ZigBee and Universal Plug-and-Play into a real test. Using smart phones and cloud services together with our home gateway implementation, we further demonstrate the ease of integration of new applications and drivers. We show the scalability of our solution by evaluating the execution time for different numbers of devices and configurations of the semantic device discovery.

Research on Service Update Dynamically Based on OSGi Frame

It is a key problem for a 7*24 running system to update and maintain online. According to the feature of OSGi (Open Service Gateway Initiative) framework, current service dynamic update policies for OSGi framework are analyzed. In order to solve the problem of service mutual consistency and service state consistency during service update, the service dynamic update policy based on publish & subscribe model is presented. This policy is based on quiescent state theory to ensure mutual consistency when services are updated online. The process of the dynamic service update policy is described by Petri net. We realize the policy using Event Admin Service in the experiment with well-defined program model. The result shows that the policy is validate and feasibility.

A Uniform and Coherent Mashup Technique Based on the OSGi Framework

A mashup is a web page or application that combines data from two or more sources so as to create new services or enhance original services. Mashup technique is usually implemented in web-based applications at web browser via drag-and-drop actions. These web-based applications usually require extra programming efforts when integrating with a non-web application, and they usually cannot drop out the APIs style programming. The developers require indicating specific data source for their new mashup applications, and usually the functions of these applications are limited due to developers’ design in developing time. This kind of programming style is difficult to mashup more data sources coherently, and it is high coupling, resource limited, and difficult to be extended. To solve these issues, this paper proposes a uniform and coherent mashup technique based on the OSGi (Open Service Gateway Initiative) framework. OSGi is a module system and service platform that implements a complete and dynamic component model. By using the OSGi’s dynamic and flexible features, applications could be easily to deploy, remove, discovery, and combine with each other. The key features of proposed mashup technique include the definition of uniform identity terms and invoking chains. The uniform identity term is used to match each application service. Developers can leverage non-web mashup applications by declaring the simple definition of uniform identity term without providing and using any APIs. The invoking chains could link and combine relative application services or data with unlimited length and irregular mixing. After that, the system could build up invoking chains to perform mashup technique automatically. Therefore, developers could mashup certain application functions or data to unknown applications in runtime phase. Finally, we present two different use cases to evaluate the capabilities of the proposed technique.

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Smart phones have pervaded almost all the environments where people perform their day-to-day activities. They are now equipped with embedded sensors, camera, touchscreen, more memory and processing capabilities as well as efficient power saving mechanisms. Together, these improvements enable the mobile devices to perform tasks that are normally run in personal computers like the provisioning of services to other devices. The idea of Mobile Host is not new and this paper tries to extend the research in the domain to the current generation platforms, technologies and standards such as Android OS, Open Services Gateway initiative framework, Zero Conf and Representational State Transfer. While the services provided from Mobile Host like the push notification mechanism and the feasible applications are interesting, for successful adoption of the technology, we need to provide better discovery mechanisms for the offered services. Mobile web service (MWS) discovery is highly dependent on the size of the network and the mobility of the nodes. A peer-to-peer based solution is proposed for the MWS discovery, to avoid the troubles with centralized registries. The approach is discussed thoroughly along with the extensions in semantic discovery support and overlay support discovery mechanism for small networks with low mobility using ZeroConf.

Research Java Web framework based on OSGi

OSGi (Open Services Gateway Initiative) provides a programming model for service components. Programming based on OSGi can bring many advantages, such as modular, standardized, service oriented, dynamisms, and easy reuse, easy extension, easy deployment, and so on. At this issue, we integrate the OSGi and Java Web popular framework which includes Struts, Spring, Hibernate, and build an enterprise applications micro-core architecture called OSSH. Java programmers who are familiar with SSH can experience the benefits of OSGi.

IDTV Home Gateway convergence: an open software model integrating the Ginga middleware and the OSGi framework

Among the most promising uses for the interactive digital TV (iDTV) are the ones that enable TV sets to work as the central processing unit of a house. With the convergence of communication technologies and electronics devices in the home environment, a wide range of interactive applications have emerged, allowing to deliver new services to the user. The iDTV processing power has been expanded to support applications that interact with other electronic appliances in the smart home environment, performing the same role of a Home Gateway. Following this goal, this paper discusses the convergence of iDTV with home network at the software level, which facilitates novel combined iDTV home control experiences for users as well as new applications for businesses. Some models that implement convergence of open technologies for working with iDTV applications (DASE/ACAP and MHP middleware) and standards for managing services in a home network (UPnP, DLNA and OSGi framework) are presented. After that, we identify the most relevant features for our country to propose a new collaboration model supported by the Open Services Gateway Initiative (OSGi) and the Brazilian reference middleware, Ginga. The design and implementation of software elements of the model is presented, modifying as little as possible core components of the two platforms and exploring the new Ginga capabilities, related to the procedural (Ginga-J) and declarative (Ginga-NCL) environments. Our work is unique because it combines Ginga with OSGi in a way that is transparent for application developers, while at the same time exploiting the declarative part of the Ginga middleware, thus allowing developers to easily write mixed iDTV home control applications. At the end, we built some validating scenarios for both platforms, allowing Ginga iDTV applications (Ginga-J xlets or Ginga-NCL scripts) to manage services of electronic devices in an integrated Ginga---OSGi home network.

A service-layer diagnostic approach for the OSGi framework

The open service gateway initiative (OSGi) framework is to provide an open environment for home services, which can be deployed by different service providers. However, currently there is no total solution for the OSGi framework to diagnose and recover from unexpected faults, especially those generated by resource conflicts between services, which would require user intervention. This paper summarizes the requirements for diagnosis in the open service platform and proposes an integrated approach to detect service conflict faults, handle general exceptions, and diagnose service errors on OSGi platforms. By providing user friendly diagnosis messages, and suggestions to fix exceptions, users can operate home gateways without a heavy learning burden, and service providers can reduce the overhead associated with user requests for technical support. The implementation is packaged as a service bundle running on the service layer of the OSGi platform. This is the first attempt to diagnose and handle the service conflicts on the OSGi platform during runtime.

Security-Enhanced OSGi Service Environments

Today's home and local-area network environments consist of various types of personal equipments, network devices, and corresponding services. Since such prevalent home network environments frequently deal with private and sensitive information, it is crucial to legitimately provide access control for protecting such emerging environments. As a result, the open services gateway initiative (OSGi) attempted to address this critical issue. However, the current OSGi authorization mechanism is not rigorous enough to fulfill security requirements involved in dynamic OSGi environments. In this paper, we provide a systematic way to adopt a role-based access control (RBAC) approach in OSGi environments. We demonstrate how our authorization framework can achieve important RBAC features and enhance existing primitive access control modules in OSGi service environments. Also, we describe a proof-of-concept prototype of the proposed framework to discuss the feasibility of our approach using an open source implementation of OSGi framework known as Knopflerfish.

A home automation proposal built on the Ginga digital TV middleware and the OSGi framework

Among the most promising applications provided by interactive Digital Television Systems (iDTV) are the ones that enable TV-Sets to work as the central processing unit of a house. This is supported by the extending of iDTV common functionalities making use of its processing power not only to deal with image and audio but also to execute interactive software applications. This paper proposes a new infrastructure that allows the exchange of data from the iDTV to Home Automation devices, such as sensors, mobile devices, and so on. The integration process among the involved technologies as well as each element in the proposed infrastructure is described in details. This model is supported by Open Services Gateway Initiative (OSGi), as a framework for networked devices, and the Brazilian reference middleware, Ginga. Thus it is possible to use devices services in OSGi-based Home Networks, through the Digital TV. In order to prove the model functionalities, we created validating scenarios of service management involving iDTV interaction with mobile phones and electronic sensor devices using WiFi and Bluetooth technologies.

MHP‐OSGi convergence: a new model for open residential gateways

AbstractNowadays, we are living in a time of important technological changes that affect our lives at home and our communication with the outside world. Among them, the developments in Interactive Digital TV (IDTV) and the smart home field can be considered as particularly important. Related to the former, the new Set‐Top Boxes (STBs) are not only a decoder for digital television broadcast but also an entry point to the Information Society and a suitable platform to support the execution of interactive applications. With regards to the latter, the Residential Gateways (RGs) combine different network technologies to allow the connection of different electronics devices and appliances at home, not only with each other but also with the Internet. Since there is no widespread consensus about the configurations and functions of the RGs, we propose to coordinate the two aforementioned worlds by extending the functionality of STBs to become a RG. Our proposal consists of merging the Multimedia Home Platform (MHP), one of the main standard frameworks for IDTV, with Open Service Gateway Initiative (OSGi), the most widely used open platform to set up RGs. To overcome the radically different nature of these specifications—the function‐oriented MHP middleware and the service‐oriented OSGi framework—we define a new kind of application, coined as XbundLET. This application is able to bridge the gap between the two frameworks and make their interaction feasible. We also show how this proposal has the potential to enable the production of scenarios that cannot currently be put into practice in a natural way. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.