Flexible and Agile Architecture for Internet of Things Gadgets Jonathan Ruiz-de-Garibay, Tomás Campo
Maite Álvarez, Ana Ayerbe
MORElab: Envisioning Future Internet Deusto University, DeustoTech Bilbao, (Basque Country), Spain
[email protected]
Information & Interaction Systems TECNALIA Zamudio (Basque Country), Spain
[email protected]
Abstract— The “Internet of Things” concept refers to the vision that allows transformation of the reality of ordinary physical objects to a new level where they can be used as services available on the Internet bringing you information in order to improve business management systems or people’s quality of life. Research into interaction between common objects and humans becomes relevant in this context. The development of a fast prototype system allows us to reach goals in a more efficient way. In this paper, we present a very simple, agile, useful and flexible architecture to generate demonstrations of the Internet of Things concept. The possible applications are endless and they only depend on people’s imagination. We are going to include three examples to explain our architecture: sharing contacts, conference voting system and a tools monitor. Keywords- Internet of Things; Architecture, RFID; Interaction; Gadgets; Simplicity; Usability
I.
INTRODUCTION
The Internet is no longer conceived as a means of finding information or a simple communications system. Nowadays, the tendency is to create new applications and services that are introduced into a ‘connected’ society where anyone can apply for and use these applications and services anywhere at any time. In the Future Internet vision new concepts are often spoken about, such as the Internet of Media (IoM), Internet of Services (IoS), and Internet of Things (IoT), which are introduced into a common global IT platform of seamless networks and networked ‘things’ [1]. In the Internet of Things world, not only people can consume Internet services, but also any object with network accessibility can use them. Furthermore, it is intended to create a new way to access the network through these objects, thus avoiding the idea of logging into the Internet solely through an electronic device (computer, tablet, mobile phone, pda etc.). That is why it is understood that the vision of ‘anyone’, ‘anywhere’ and ‘anyplace’ is going to become more and more widespread among Internet users, as seen in Figure 1.
Figure 1. The Internet of Things Vision
The Internet of Things vision may adopt several different development concepts. The most popular one concerns the usage of RFID tags in order to link common objects from the real world to knowledge systems with accessible information through the Internet. This way, using RFID reader devices will allow us to identify tagged objects that will act differently depending on the environment due to the information that they have and can recognize. Surfing through the Internet would be possible using these tags as hyperlinks that can be stimulated to obtain the required information, following the physical browsing model [2]. The main contribution of this paper is the experimentation of the Internet of Things concept with a simple architecture that allows you to create small demos quickly. The following section provides a brief review of the state of art that motivated the design of the architecture presented in section III. In section IV, we present the first device that was built and its main characteristics, and in section V demonstrators developed with this version are explained. The final sections are devoted to platform testing and future research. II.
STATE OF ART
Today’s society talks about two factors that contribute to the change in the Internet vision and its applications: 1.
Digital lifestyle: there is more and more agreement on the addition of technology-based products to the world
in order to improve not only business management processes but also society’s quality of life. Nevertheless, there is still a huge group of people, mainly elderly people and people in developing countries, who are unable to benefit from the advantages that technology provides the rest of society. 2.
Internet of Things: this allows the commodities to surf the web, helping to develop the concept of “network intelligence.” Therefore, it is not necessary to use a computer as a unique point to log into the Internet, thus allowing expansion of Ubiquitous Computing.
The combination of these two factors creates a new paradigm on the Internet with a lot of possibilities but with little previous experienc. A. Internet Of Things gadgets The examples that are exploiting this new paradigm are products like Philips DirectLife [3], a personalized fitness program that records your daily movements and easily transfers the information to a webpage that keeps track of your progress against your longer-term goals. Apart from the motivation, it gives feedback and provides support to help people make sustainable changes in their lifestyles. Life Pod [4] compiles activities that users execute through a 3G mobile phone which includes an RFID reader. The user touches an RFID tag on the mobile phone to obtain information from it or to send reports to the system. Other examples are the Withing digital scales [5] or Bodytrace [6], which automatically transfer your weight to the Internet, so users can be assisted in monitoring and weight control diets. In figure 2, the user can see its evolutions in a mobile phone.
Figure 2. Withings bascule
The final example [7] refers to a music player used through the popular music streaming application Spotify. This device allows communication with the user thanks to 192 LED nodes, which display volume levels, battery life and Internet connectivity on the device’s face. B. User Interaction Nowadays, the presence of digital-world concepts seems to be very common in our everyday life. One of the most relevant components of Ubiquitous Computing is Tangible User Interfaces (TUI) [8]. In the research performed by some authors, TUI and GUI elements are integrated creating a tangible tabletop user interface which allows free, natural and unstructured ways of interactivity and creativity by connecting real paper cards with digital image data. Physical Browsing is a user interaction paradigm related to the idea of connecting the physical and digital worlds. There
are [9] discussions among authors about this concept that try to define interaction methods and to develop prototypes. There are some case studies on human-computer interaction in Internet of Things. For example, [10] speaks about embedded interaction, the technological and conceptual phenomena of seamlessly integrating the means for interaction into everyday artifacts, and present different case studies such as kitchen utilities. III.
ARCHITECTURE
The architecture is based on the element FT2232 chip. This chip, as well as all its family of FTDI (Future Technology Devices International Ltd.) [11], is used to migrate systems based on serial communications (rs232, rs485…) to systems with USB connections, which are much more commonly used for communication with peripherals. The model used generates two virtual serial ports in a computer with all associated control signals (RTS and CTS can be controlled through software). In Figure 3 an overview of the system architecture is provided and includes an FT2232 chip and two RFDI readers using only one line to receive data and four control signals (two for each serial port) for digital output devices. A. RFID readers RFID readers are used in most asynchronous serial USART (Universal Synchronous Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter) ports for communication with external entities. Some of them include other communication systems like I2C (Inter-Integrated Circuit), but the widespread use and the simplicity of USART makes it a perfect solution for these types of chips. These chips also include some control signals like inputs, such us a reset line or an output to indicate that they have read a new RFID tag. These lines allow and/or improve the control over the device, but in most cases, the main function of the reader is used just to read an RFID tag, only checking the output that the RFID has read. In this architecture, RFID readers should be able to send the read tag through a serial USART port. Furthermore, the protocol used enables the identification of the start and end of a new data frame in order to avoid the usage of other control signals (it would be possible to manage these signals but the possibility of using a port’s control lines for other functions would be lost).
Figure 3. System architecture
B. Control signals The four control lines are digital, so only two possible states can be controlled each time (ON and OFF). By default, you can use directly digital components such as LEDs or a buzzer. There is still room available for other possibilities, such as control through a PWM so that you can switch on a LED with more or less intensity or you can use it to manage a CC motor allowing it to move faster or more slowly. Another option is to use devices that can be controlled by two or more signals like bicolor or tricolor LEDs. C. RFID readers/writers With these main elements, the full potential of the FTDI chip is not used because the transmission lines that the FTDI chip series has are still unused: those that send information from the PC to peripherals. These can be applied in different functions in order to provide the system with a microOLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode) screen or to replace the RFID reader for other able to write data to RFID tags. IV.
DUAL RFID READER V1
In this paper, the implementation of the most basic version of the system based on two RFID readers and four control lines is presented. The used RFID readers are the ID12 of Innovations, whose main characteristic is its ease of use owing to the inclusion of the integrated antenna embedded in the chip and a transmission line to communicate the ID number read from the tag. The major disadvantage is that they are able to store the previously read tag, so it sends the same data continuously as long as the card is above the reader. This should be taken into account when developing the application that controls the device. The four control lines have different utilities. Two of them are used to inform the user, by means of a buzzer, that a correct reading of a tag has been made, while the other two remain free for a specific use depending on the application.
A. Dual RFID Reader Library In order to manage the DualRFidReader, a simple library is provided to use the hardware device. By using this library, all the necessary operations can be performed for the proper handling of hardware, such as initializing, reading, or enabling and disabling control signals. The current version is developed in Java and it completely abstracts how the poster works to the application developer. The input of the COM port, where the poster is connected, is only needed; stored in a configuration file. In order to manage the control signals, specific functions are defined. Meanwhile, in order to read RFID tags, an event that it is launched when you have fully read the identifier has been created. This is why you do not need to continually consult whether there is a tag being useless in order to know the protocol of the reader because the library itself takes care of that. V.
DEMONSTRATORS
Here are 3 ideas of possible demonstrators with this architecture: sharing contacts, a conference voting system and tools monitor. The first one is the most basic idea and allows two people to exchange contact information through their cards. The second one provides a voting system based on a user's personal card and cards that represent, for example, presentations at a conference. The latter is aimed at monitoring and supervising of the state and usage of the devices in a prototyping laboratory. The first two were used in the 3rd RFID conference held at Deusto University in November 2009. A. Sharing Contact This is an area with two RFID reading zones where two conference attendees must place their ID cards. Each card is associated with the attendee and your contact details (email, phone, company...), so the system sends an email to both of them with all the contact details of the other attendee.
Figure 4. DualRfidReader V1.0
Figure 5. Sharing contact
It is the simplest of all because it only makes use of RFID readers and buzzers to alert the user that the readings were made correctly. Therefore, the data exchange has been successfully completed. In Figure 5 we can see the front-end of the final device. As can be seen, the system it is not self-explanatory, simply because it was designed to perform different applications on the same medium. Nevertheless, as we will be able to see later in the tests already carried out, when used in scientific and technological environments, it is highly intuitive to use.
Figure 6 shows the front-end of the demonstrator, which includes a textual description of its operation and a bicolor LED on the central area of the poster to indicate if the vote had been issued correctly. As an example of how the control lines from one of the demonstrators works, in the following table the devices controlled in this demonstrator are shown with the pins and the ports that are connected to them and the logical level of activation. The library implements a series of methods (ledOn, ledOff, beep ...) that the developer does not need to know how they work.
B. Conference voting For this demonstrator, a repository of presentations by various speakers at the conference was created so that if an attendee had liked a presentation, he would have sent the presentation directly to his/her email only by bringing his/her ID card to reader 1 and the poster card (identified by the title of the presentation) to reader 2. In addition, the system is used to create a voting system among those attending the conference so that the prize for the best research paper is chosen by the attendees themselves. There are certain restrictions, for example, the speaker cannot vote him/herelf or the presentation can only be sent once to the same attendee.
Table 1. Control Signals for Conference Voting Port Serial Port 1
Serial Port 2
Pin
Device
Active
RTS
Green LED
Low level
DTR
Buzzer
High Level
RTS
Red LED
Low Level
DTR
Buzzer
High Level
Taking advantage of this structure, a second example has been created of an object connected to the Internet that, instead of sending a presentation, records the presentation in a user's Google Calendar schedule. Therefore, a system is provided to add those papers that he or she considers to be more interesting, thus allowing the attendees to schedule their attendance. C. Tools monitor Management of the existing equipment in a laboratory becomes extremely complicated because it is extremely difficult to be both agile and effective at the same time. Traditional methods are based on either access to a PC to indicate that a team has been taken or by noting down on a sheet of paper in low-tech environments. In both cases, the process is slow in time since in the former it will almost certainly be necessary to locate the picked team in a dropdown list, while in the latter, the tools will be coded. You would therefore have to learn the codes or look for them in a written list. The representation of these teams in a graphic form, or even in 3D shapes, facilitates the location of the item and through a personal identification card, the user's association with the team is quick and easy. The appearance of this demonstrator is similar to the conference voting system, which has two RFID readers, a descriptive text at the bottom and the tool list at the top. A user need only pass the ID card through one of the readers at the same time as the card of the team that is going to be used. With this simple gesture, which takes less than 5 seconds, the usage of a team can be recorded and besides, it gives them extra information about the time at which it has been used.
Figure 6. Interactive Poster
VI.
TESTING
The main tests that have been conducted were focused on checking the reliability, flexibility and ease of use of the presented architecture. As regards the first of the parameters, reliability, the results obtained have been very successful, although we have identified several points that must be given special attention: •
•
The DualRfidReader is a device without memory, so if the connection between the computer and the device breaks down, it will be impossible to send and receive data. Only in less than 0.05% of the testing of the connection did this occur, so it can be ensured that the device is highly reliable. While the tag is over the reader, the device reads an RFID tag many times, so the id is sent more than once to the computer. This situation must be controlled by the developer of the application, although it is also possible to modify the DualrfidReader library (this option has not been implemented because it may be interesting for certain applications to know how long has the RFID tag been over the reader).
Tests on flexibility have focused on changing the RFID reader model. This change involves updating the library with the specific protocol of each reader, but it is not necessary to modify the hardware architecture. Some of the most representative tests that have been carried out are: •
ID-xx family innovations: they are totally compatible, but USB port supply is limited to 500mA, so the reader ID-20 consumption is too high and it cannot be read from the distance specified by the manufacturer.
•
RFID reader/writer: we used the SM125-M1 device to check if it is possible to write RFID tags with this architecture. We have used one of the transmission lines and tests were correct.
•
Connection with a microcontroller: we performed a test with a PIC18F2520 microcontroller and we used one of the free transmission lines so that you can send information to the microcontroller multiplying the control signals (in this case only outputs such as LCD display can be used).
Finally, the ease of use, preferred by application developers, was not able to provide sufficient evidence to draw conclusions. Still, early reviews show that existence of the DualRfidReader library facilitates the work of developers and that they greatly appreciate both the documentation and the relationship between the simplicity and power of the device to create small applications. A. End users tests The first two demonstrators were tested at the 3rd RFID Conference at the University of Deusto in November 2009, but additional tests were carried out throughout2010. The most interesting tests have been done with the Tool Monitor, as they have been made with end users with a low
level of knowledge on this type of technology. This allowed us to see how to use new interfaces. After users worked with the application, they filled in a survey and the most significant results were: •
More than 90% positively valued the interaction model based on images instead of text lists, and also the ease and speed at which they worked.
•
Only 8% felt that an explanation was necessary after working with the device (this includes a brief description at the bottom).
•
73% considered that they could use it in their job. Some of them included comments relating to the limitation on the number of tools to include. VII. FUTURE WORK
Until now, the project mainly has been focused on defining the architecture and implementation of an initial version for testing with end users. The following are the most important steps to be taken: a.
The project will be published under Open Source license.
b.
Other libraries for other programming languages such as C++ or C# will be created.
c.
New demonstrators to continue researching into the development of new interface models.
d.
Accessibility of the application output in remote devices, such as a personal mobile phone, can be implemented.
e.
Meanwhile, the same demonstrators can implemented in other simple everyday objects.
f.
Deployment of new versions of DualRfidReader based on tests with other devices (embedded microcontrollers, readers/writers RFID ...).
be
VIII. CONCLUSION The digital representation of objects is not limited to the item of a logistic company. Everyday objects can be represented and we can take advantage of new opportunities made available. If the Internet of Things concept permeates our society, it would imply a shift in the conception of the future. For example, there would be no lost material because every object would always be identified and communicated with the Internet. That would involve a cost reduction in the business environment and peace of mind in society. Our architecture is an example for which we can create new application sceneries with a very simple architecture and great possibilities. Just by combining a piece of software with hardware and Internet functionalities, we can create new products that would ease industrial processes. Sometimes, innovation is conceived as creating a completely new and vanguard product with embedded high
technology that can break the market and bring about a complete change in the people necessities. This definition is just one part of the concept. The innovation that really impacts in the market is the one that creates a new functionality with the same resources and follows the doctrine of “do more, with less.” In other words, successful innovation is doing more with the same or the same with less. Summarizing, there is a demand from all companies to lighten their process and to reduce costs in order to compete better in a globalized world. Time, cost and resource reduction sometimes resides in the simplest things around us. REFERENCES [1]
P. Guillemin, et al, “Internet of Things. Strategic Research Roadmap”, 2009. [2] P. Välkkynen, et al., "A user interaction paradigm for physical browsing and near-object control based on tags," 2003, p. 31. [3] http://www.directlife.philips.com/ [4] A. Minamikawa, et al., "RFID Supplement for Mobile-Based Life Log System," ed. Proceedings of the 2007 International Symposium on Applications and the Internet Workshops (SAINTW'07), 2007, p. 50. [5] http://www.withings.com/es/bascula [6] http://www.bodytrace.com/ [7] http://blog.zenona.com/page/1 [8] A. F. Blackwell, et al: “Tangible user interfaces in context and theory”, CHI '07 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems, San Jose, CA, USA, 2007. [9] T. Doering, et al: “Towards a sensible integration of paper-based tangible user interfaces into creative work processes”, Proceedings of the 27th international conference extended abstracts on Hu an factors in computing systems, Boston, MA, USA, 2009. [10] F. Thiesse, et al., “Embedded Interaction, Interacting with the Internet of Things”, IEEE Internet Computing, 2010, p. 46. [11] http://www.ftdichip.com/
