A meta-protocol based interoperability support framework for heterogeneous home network middleware

Abstract

Over ten years ago Mark Weiser identified the goal of future computing to be ubiquitous computing. In the very near future, this goal will be realized as computation and communication capability will be embedded in virtually every appliance. The exponential increase in the numbers, types, and middleware of networked appliances will soon present a diversity of execution environments for applications. Therefore, developers have to redevelop the applications in order to deploy an identical application to another home even though that application is not changed. Moreover, since basic applications that control only a single appliance do not of for much added value compared to traditional appliances in future home, applications are likely to be powerful enough to integrate the control of multiple appliances tough re-configuring appliance interactions at any point during a service. This situation raises interoperability issues that need to be resolved before networked appliances can be successfully mass-marked. Interoperability allows for the discovery, self-configuration, and control of appliances by dynamically binding the appliances without user intervention and modification of application logic under heterogeneous middleware. Interoperability will fulfill consumer``s expectations about being able to access appliances anywhere and anytime, and make applications adjust their behavior intelligently with considering the heterogeneity of appliances through abstracting the diversity of functions of appliance at a high-level. However, since current middleware, such as HAVi, Jini, UPnP, and LonWorks typically assume a static and a well-administrated environment, these applications cannot provide interoperability among heterogeneous appliances. Developing an application that can accommodate a diversity of execution environments in individual home without any modifications to the application, even if the predefined or user-defined preferences are changed, will not be an...