Internet of Things 2008

Industrial Program and Invited Talks

One of the key goals of this conference is to bring leading researchers and practitioners from both academia and industry together to facilitate sharing of applications, research results, and knowledge. In addition to the open-call scientific track and four distinguished keynote speakers we have assembled a high-profile program with industry visionaries, seasoned practitioners and invited speakers from academia.

Karl Aberer (EPFL, Director NCCR-MICS)

Swiss Experiment: From Wireless Sensing to E-Science

Wireless sensor networks enable environmental scientists and engineers to perform in-situ measurements of physical processes at so far unknown spatial and temporal resolution. E-science platforms based on recent information and Web technologies enable novel forms of data-driven and collaborative scientific work. In the Swiss Experiment environmental and computer scientists are jointly exploring the potential of exploiting these novel technologies to advance research in environmental science in the specific context Switzerland, investigating problems such as the regional hydrological cycle, water quality and avalanches. We aim at an e-science infrastructure integrating different stages of scientific work, integrating data acquisition through wireless sensor networks and other sensing instruments, data management and provenance in a distributed Web-based infrastructure, data analysis and visualization, scientific modeling and decision making. In this talk we provide an overview of several environmental monitoring experiments, the key challenges of building the envisaged e-science infrastructure and our recent technological developments and results.

Chris Adcock (EPC Global, CEO)

EPCglobal - Developing the global standards infrastructure

You can download the slides here: PDF

The EPCglobal community, made up of end user from various industries as well as technology companies, has been developing a suite of standards for the global use of EPC and RFID. This talk will highlight the significance and opportunities of developing user driven standards that meet the needs of multiple industries at a global and local level. The ability to create and share information in ways that have not been possible before is helping to drive benefits and value for the companies themselves and the customers they serve.

Michael Berger (Siemens AG, Corporate Technology - Intelligent Autonomous Systems, Competence Field Leader)

Intelligent Solutions for Smart Environments - From Consumer to Industrial Applications

You can download the slides here: PDF

Beside technologies like sensors, actuators, communication, security and data management, intelligent agent technologies on the application level provide the real use of the Internet of Things and make smart environments possible. The presentation gives an overview of such technologies developed and applied at Siemens Corporate Technology. The presentation shows the current transition from consumer oriented to industrial applications.

Ken Douglas (BP, Technology Director)

An industrial view of the challenges and opportunities

This talk was cancelled!

For several years BP has been at the forefront of deploying wireless and "smart objects" in the field - aimed at solving real world business and technical challenges. Ken will chart the development of mote technology, smart location and environmental sensors in BP's global business and highlight the challenges encountered and the insights they now have to the likely adoption and evolution of "internet of things" concepts over the next 3-4 years. he will talk specifically about their efforts to push the technology envelope and the specific challenges of converting idea from the lab to robust industrial solutions that can be pragmatically used and managed.

Remo Frei (SFS unimarket AG)

TurnLog - Innovate C-part Logistics Using RFID

The logistics and administrative cost for low-value C-parts cause a disproportionately high effort compared to the purchase price of the parts themselves. In order to reduce total cost, industrial companies strive for a reliable just in time and at optimal cost purchasing of the immense variety of its C-parts (commodity products). SFS unimarket as a logistics service provider delivers these service including C-parts. SFS unimarkets "turnLOG" solution provides a simple and reliable ordering process for container-based C-parts. Through the use of RFID technology, a revolution becomes possible. The container as a "smart thing" triggers an order via radio as soon as it is turned by the employee. The solution has been realized in cooperation with Intellion AG. Turned - ordered - delivered. It doesn't get any easier. And it's all done wireless, flexibly, with low implementation cost and high reliability.

Heikki Huomo (Innovision, CTO and Technical Director of Innovision Research and Technology PLC)

Next Step for Smart Objects, Communicate with them

This talk was cancelled!

Smart objects are commonplace as the semiconductor based integrated electronics become more affordable. Several short range data communications technologies are also evolving but the key challenge is how to hide the technical complexity from the consumer users. This talk gives the background and current status of the NFC, Near Field Communications, which is regarded as one of the key technologies to improve usability for mobile handset based services.

Miguel Lopera (GS 1)

Supporting the Infrastructure for the Internet of Things

You can download the slides here: PDF

Tom Oelsner (Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG, Director Remote Services)

Business-Integrated Intelligent Device Management

You can download the slides here: PDF

In 2002 Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG started an initiative to connect all their product lines over the Internet to increase service efficiency and develop new service business. The first phase of the program was focused to speed up diagnosis and repair processes. The high acceptance rate of the customers today is documented in a connection rate of more than 75% of the manufactured machines worldwide. Once machines are connected to the Internet new proactive services are delivered now utilizing this Internet platform. Integration with the existing IT systems such as ERP and CRM will lead to a complete digital service chain without media breaks. The presentation will share the project experiences of the integration of Intelligent Device Management with the SAP ERP systems to achieve an automated service notification workflow.

Marc Oertle (Spital STS AG, Spital Thun)

RFID-based Identfication System in a Swiss Acute Care Hospital: Is it the End of Errors?

You can download the slides here: PDF

The healthcare environment is considered to be a complex adaptive system. Due to this fact and as many human-human and human-machine interactions take place, the system is - despite very well educated personnel - prone to errors. Although information and communication technologies (ICT) are widely regarded as a key enabler in finding solutions for increasing process safety and process quality especially in hospitals, mainly due to socio-technical reasons the ICT usage in healthcare lacks the enormous distribution known from other economic sectors. As the Spital STS (Simmental-Thun-Saanenland) company is one of the leading Swiss hospitals concerning medical informatics, implementation of new technologies like RFID can be seamlessly implemented in the existing infrastructure and patients trajectories. In the Idef-IS project, an RFID-based identification system was internally developped and implemented during summer 2006. The main purpose was to completely avoid errors in the blood transfusion chain. As the identification system has a generic architecture, other processes can be implemented leading hopefully to a significant reduction of medical errors in our acute care hospital.

Dave Raggett (W3C Fellow / Justsystems)

Towards the Web of Things

You can download the slides here: PDF

A look at the origins of the Web, how it has evolved, and the challenges in extending it to the Web of things as the number and variety of networked devices explodes. Changing the way we conceive of the Web. Why today's hacks will give way to more structured approaches to developing applications that allow developers to focus on what the application should do rather than the details of exactly how.

Mike Roth (Amazon, Director EU Supply Chain)

A brief history of time the Amazon way

Once a company name becomes synonymous with a product or behaviour it is fair to say that it has left a lasting impression on its area of operation. "To Amazon it" translates into complex operational requirements which have to be efficient and scalable for handling a diamond ring as well as a 50 inch LCD TV. Technological investments have to be weighed against flexibility and scalability, especially in a business which is still driven by a high level of seasonality. Complex technological solutions might impact learning curves for a temporary workforce and hence need to be carefully evaluated and tested. The presentation will focus on the operational challenges Amazon faces and how the sustained level of growth is fuelled by levelling operational expertise with technological advancements.

Gerald Santucci (Head of Unit for RFID, European Commission, Directorate General for Information Society and Media)

Policy and Technological Drivers in the Internet of Things

You can download the slides here: PDF

By 2020 the Internet as we know it today will have disappeared. It will be integrated naturally into our environment so that we will no longer notice it. The much-debated "Web 3.0" or "Web N.0" will be a reality - enabling the transformation of the Web into a database, artificial intelligence on the Web, the realisation of the Semantic Web and Service Oriented Architecture, the evolution towards 3D shared spaces, and so on – in short, we will enjoy an intuitive Web whose screen will be our environment and in which visualisation and connection places will be everywhere. One of the most expected and spectacular developments towards this will be the Internet of Things in which real-world objects have an individual digital presence. Where does the concept of "Internet of Things" come from? What are the likely technological disruptions, organisational breakthroughs and societal scenarios that it will shape? What will be the new challenges and opportunities that it will generate in terms of technology and applications? What are the roadblocks and barriers which its gradual deployment will inevitably raise? What are the key policy issues – security, privacy, safety, governance, standards, spectrum, sustainability, health, etc. – that will need to be addressed?

Peter Schaar (German Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information)

Developments of the Privacy Debate in the Internet of Things - Status, Issues and Outlook, Europe - Worldwide

You can download the slides here: PDF

Ubiquitous computing means that the data subject loses more and more control about the fact who knows what about him - the core of the right of informational self-determination is menaced. When the whole daily life is registered, unobserved private havens in which we can behave in a natural way are shrinking continuously. Nowadays, it is no longer sufficient to secure the use of information technology by legal means and, by dint of technical and organisational measures, to counteract the misuse of data. It will be decisive to design systems in such a way that they require less data about our behaviour and nonetheless support us effectively.

John Stevens (Visible Assets)

High Security Government and Healthcare Applications: The Elimination of Eavesdropping, Tempest and Target Risk in Wireless Networks

You can download the slides here: PDF

Ideally, the Internet of Things should be an array of highly secure, object-based wireless tags that all act as "object servers" and "visibility sensors." Each tag should be intelligent, programmable and provide secure object pedigree, status and location information. RuBee (a pending IEEE standard P1902.1) is an active, long wavelength, inductive, packet-based protocol optimized for secure communications. RuBee tags are programmable, equipped with memory, provide a range of up to 100 feet, and a battery life of ten years using coin-sized Li batteries. Because RuBee is magnetic, it overcomes many of the problems seen with RF-ID in harsh environments and works well near steel and water. However, an unexpected benefit of near field, long wavelength physics is that unauthorized eavesdropping and signal interdiction are blocked. Eavesdropping, considered the major security risk in any wirelesses network, is totally eliminated as a risk in RuBee networks. In addition, RuBee signals offer no significant tempest or target threat and RuBee has full two-way packet security with optional public private key authentication, with One-Time Pad (OTP), One-Time Key (OTK) options linked to each tag’s internal real-time clock. RuBee is now in active use in some of the most secure facilities in the USA as an asset visibility system. It is also in use in secure healthcare applications where patient privacy is a major concern and HIPPA compliance standards must be met.

Dirk Trossen (BT Group Chief Technology Office)

Information-Centric Networking: A Large-Scale Challenge for Today's Internet

You can download the slides here: PDF

The "Internet of Things" has been driven by the vision of connecting billions and billions of devices with each other, fueled by developments in areas like RFID but also embedded and mobile devices. But the terminology "Internet of Things" poses the question whether or not we deem the Internet as actually being fit for this challenge, down to its fundamental design since new forms of (localized) communication patterns, drastically increasing traffic demands and unearthening new challenges for secure and private forms of information interchange. will pose additional burden on today's Internet, together with the well-known threats of denial-of-service attacks, spam, phishing and alike. This presentation will shed a light on BT's activities in 'traditional' areas of the "Internet of Things", like RFID, but also on activities around preparing today's Internet for this future challenge. The presentation will highlight research in communication paradigms, large-scale publish-subscribe, new forms of internetworking as well as privacy and security mechanisms, aiming at enabling trusted collaboration across value chains that will meet individual and corporate needs on confidentiality and privacy.

Hans-Jörg Vögel (BMW AG)

Car2X - Challenges and Tasks

You can download the slides here: PDF

Car2X communication technologies are dedicated to the connectivity between a vehicle and its environment. To fully explore the capabilities of this technology, it is required that the related wirelesss communication process can be realized in a bi-directional manner, allowing the vehicle to address its environment and the environment to address the vehicle. This finally entails that both systems must be equipped with a communication platform allowing the data exchange on the basis of a standardized protocol. Car2X communication allows to realize a full variety of use-cases in the fields of traffic safety, traffic management and so-called commercial applications. Depending on the specific application to be realized, it might be favourable to achieve - in the case of real time applications - a direct (ad-hoc) data exchange between the systems envolved or - in the case of time uncritical applications - to consider the data exchange with a (remote) data server infrastructure.

Christof Weinhardt (Universität Karlsruhe)

Enabling Business Services in the Internet of Things

This talk was cancelled!

The "Internet of Things" has brought up many innovative devices. The cross-link of such devices not only enhances their functionality. New innovative business services can generate added value on basis of the information collected and exchanged by internet embedded devices. Both, information coordination tasks as well as completely new services ideas based on the transformation and processing of information and data, call for an economic perspective on the internet of things and services. Concepts such as dynamic pricing or internet-compatible business models are needed to tackle with the successful exploitation of the opportunities given by the internet of things and services. Some of them are introduced - generically as well as in application areas as future energy or logistic markets.