SACCOM – Soft Actuation over Cooperating Objects Middleware

Description

SACCOM is a 1-year project, funded as part of the SmartSantander project through the FIRE Open Call. SACCOM will perform two experiments in the Guildford Smart Campus which features an IoT testbed.

In the first experiment, the POBICOS middleware (product of the recently completed FP7 POBICOS project) will be integrated with the Guildford testbed. IoT nodes will speak a lightweight protocol to introduce their sensors and actuators to a server-based POBICOS proxy environment. For each IoT node, a dedicated proxy process will expose the node’s resources to POBICOS applications, as if it were a native POBICOS node. The goal is to have about 200 Smart Campus nodes represented by proxies. Performance of the entire system will be monitored, with emphasis on responsiveness of the proxy environment.

In the second experiment, the concept of “soft-actuation” will be evaluated in the offices of the Guildford campus. Soft actuation is a new mode of human-computer interaction for pervasive computing. Soft-actuating applications do not affect the environment directly, but instead issue a non-intrusive hint to the user prompting him to manually perform the actuating action by himself. As a result, the control remains with the user, who may also disregard the hint. The test applications will sense the user’s office and generate hints (delivered to the user via a peripheral display) related to energy conservation and ergonomic lighting. In turn, users will provide feedback on the hints received; they will also complete a questionnaire and take a short interview.

Role: Integration of the POBICOS middleware with the Guildford IoT testbed, implementation of the POBICOS applications, development of the user feedback acquisition system, design and support of the application experiment.