EduCampus

The EduCampus use-case will show how symbIoTe can be used to federate different IoT applications from individual campus deployments.

The EduCampus use case is inspired by the eduroam (EDUcation ROAMing) initiative. The key idea behind both concepts is to agree on a common framework to harmonize infrastructure services, in order to provide researchers, teachers and students easy and secure access to campus services when visiting campuses other than their own. While eduroam focuses on network access, the EduCampus use case aims for IoT middleware services.

The vision behind the EduCampus is following. When looking at the rapidly growing market for sensors included in smart devices, used in or attached to smart buildings, establishing smart campus infrastructures, there will be rich offering of services based on IoT middleware installations on a campus. Examples are climate control systems in workplaces, electronic access control systems, indoor location and navigation support, guidance systems for handicapped people, location based collaboration support, or room information and reservations systems as discussed in the EduCampus showcase below.

Sometimes these services will be unique to certain campus, but in many cases there will be very similar services on different campus, but realized in deployment specific ways. This will result in services, which are functionally identical for different campus solutions, but technical incompatible for visiting campus users. By facilitating the symbIoTe interoperability framework for campus deployments, EduCampus aims to be the incubator for interoperable IoT-platform federations.

campus4To create a showcase for the EduCampus vision, we connect to already existing experimentation environments of different campus applications. These platforms are created in order to enable experimentation, and to extend and change the platforms was it would not be possible with an operational system.

However, the experimental platforms are containing the limitations of the real operational systems. An important limitation is that each campus application is using its own representation of the managed assets. That implies a platform specific modelling of assets, a specific view on these assets and a specific way to control assets. A consequence for the federation of campus applications within the EduCampus use case is the capability to deal with assets from a remote campus as they would be modelled like the own assets. That is an essential requirement for the symbIoTe framework.

Involved partners IOSB
External partners KIT,
UPMC
Countries involved in the trials Germany,
France
Platforms involved (not finalized) SensorThingsServer,
MORADA,
Elasticsearch
Number of test users planned 50

The planed trials are using indoor location sensors based on Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology to determine the position of a user inside a campus building. The position data will be combined with information systems about work and meeting facilities and optional with other sensor information available for rooms, like air quality or temperature.