WISE: A Semantic and Interoperable Web of Things Architecture for Smart Environments

Abstract

The rapid proliferation of Internet of Things devices has led to a number of different standards and technologies which offer novel and exciting services. One of the key aspect of the Internet of Things is its ubiquitness, as devices may spontaneously form networks and leave them possibly in short time frames. This is the case of Smart Environments such as Smart Homes, in which users carry a set of devices like wearables and mobile applications to monitor their behavior and provide contextual services. However, the interoperability and seamless interaction of different devices is yet to be fully realized. In this paper we propose WISE, a framework that leverages the Web of Thing architecture and Semantic technologies to overcome technical and conceptual interoperability difficulties and enables the creation of cooperative Smart Environments that self-adapt on the basis of users' preferences. The use of Semantic technologies enables to understand which devices can provide the needed affordances to meet the user preferences, while the WoT architecture is leveraged to access devices in a standardized manner. We also propose a reference implementation based on off-the-shelf devices which demonstrate the feasibility of WISE.