Towards an IoT ecosystem

Abstract

In the near future, it will be possible that every object on Earth can be identifiable and addressable. Such objects will be able to be monitored and monitor their physical environments, and of executing actions on such environments in benefit of human users. Moreover, these so-called smart objects will be endowed with wireless communication capabilities. By being uniquely addressed, wireless endowed and through the use of existing protocols and standardized formats, smart things can be integrated in the Internet and accessed as any other Web resource. In this context, the Internet of Things (IoT) emerges as a paradigm in which smart things actively collaborate among them and with other physical and virtual objects available in the Web, providing value-added information and functionalities for users. The IoT paradigm has recently showed its potential of considerably impacting the daily lives of human beings mainly due to the use and interaction of physical devices in several domains, including complex systems composed of other systems. In this paper we discuss the IoT paradigm from the perspective of Systems-of-Systems and present EcoDiF, a IoT platform that integrates heterogeneous devices to provide real-time data control, visualization, processing, and storage. In EcoDiF, devices, information, users and applications are integrated to create an IoT ecosystem in which new ideas and products can be developed in an organic way.