Breaking Vendors and City Locks through a Semantic-enabled Global Interoperable Internet-of-Things System: A Smart Parking Case

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) is unanimously identified as one of the main technology enablers for the development of future intelligent environments. However, the current IoT landscape is suffering from large fragmentation with many platforms and vendors competing with their own solution. This fragmented scenario is now jeopardizing the uptake of the IoT, as investments are not carried out partly because of the fear of being captured in lock-in situations. To overcome these fears, interoperability solutions are being put forward in order to guarantee that the deployed IoT infrastructure, independently of its manufacturer and/or platform, can exchange information, data and knowledge in a meaningful way. This paper presents a Global IoT Services (GIoTS) use case demonstrating how semantic interoperability among five different smart city IoT deployments can be leveraged to develop a smart urban mobility service. The application that has been developed seamlessly consumes data from them for providing parking guidance and mobility suggestions at the five locations (Santander and Barcelona in Spain and Busan, Seoul and Seongnam in South Korea) where the abovementioned IoT deployments are installed. The paper is also presenting the key aspects of the system enabling the interoperability among the three underlying heterogeneous IoT platforms.