Service Platform Technology for Accelerating Use of Network-ready Devices

摘要

An increasing number of devices, including home appliances, audio-visual equipment, energy-related devices, and healthcare devices, are network-ready.While the focus at present is on smartphone-based services for monitoring and controlling the state of individual devices, the spread of advanced services for simultaneously controlling a variety of devices is anticipated.However, the control procedures and functions of network-ready devices differ significantly between vendors and even between models.Moreover, they are frequently upgraded.As a result, the development of services that use various types of devices is hampered.A service platform that can conceal such differences among individual devices is thus becoming increasingly important.We have developed a service platform that models any device as a virtual device having common properties for that device type and that provides application programming interfaces (APIs) for controlling these virtual devices.These APIs enable a service developer to control an actual device by controlling its virtual device, which negates the need for detailed knowledge of individual devices and promotes efficient development of services.Fujitsu has applied this service platform to its "Smart Sensing Platform (SSPF)."