Project FLEXEO

Project Flexeo

Start date: September 2006
End date: September 2007

Flexeo is a research project focused on the design of a flexible technological architecture for integrating sensor networks and remote operation of devices and equipment into organizational business processes, through state-of-the-art technologies.

The outcome is an adaptive and customizable architecture, suitable for different application domains and supporting the core concepts underlaying the Ambient Intelligence vision: ubiquitous communications, ubiquitous computing, intelligent behaviour and natural interfaces.

Flexeo is funded by the Department of Innovation and Economic Promotion of the Regional Government of Biscay (Diputación Foral de Bizkaia), via Ekinberri 2006 program. Flexeo deliverables and code are freely available to organizations and enterprises located in Biscay. Please visit the Downloads and Contact sections for further information.

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Description

Flexeo architecture comprises three layers:

Sensors & Actuators Layer: elements in this layer are deployed in the concrete scenario to monitorize, being the closest layer to the variables and parameters to measure. It is composed by a technological platform integrating multiple families of sensors, actuators, and communication capabilities with the upper layer (Coordination Layer). Sensors can measure environmental conditions, equipments' state, or even being composed of biometric sensors. Actuators can perform multiple remote controlled operations on deployed devices.
Involved technologies: wireless sensor networks (Motes, Smart-Its), RFID, biometrics, and biometric identification.
Coordination Layer: this layer is deployed in the concrete scenario to monitorize, interfacing between the Sensors & Actuators Layer and the Supervision & Control Layer. Its main goal is obtaining information from the sensors, semantically annotating this information and making this knowledge available to the Supervision & Control Layer in order to take the appropriate decissions. Moreover, this layer features an embedded rule engine in order to provide local autonomous reactivity for different situations, not requiring delegation to the Supervision & Control Layer.
Involved technologies: semantic annotation, ubiquitous computing, GPRS/UMTS & WiFi/WiMax integration, ECA (Event-Condition-Action) systems, high performance embedded processing.
Supervision & Control Layer: this layer is located in the computing facilities of the organization that benefits from the knowledge obtained via sensors, reacting through remote operation on the actuators. This layer receives the information generated from the sensors via the Coordination Layer, and applies reasoning mechanisms in order to generate additional knowledge for the organizational systems. This knowledge is used to act upon the remote actuators in order to provide a reactive response to a particular situation.
Involved technologies: semantic web (RDF) and ontologies (OWL), bayesian networks, reasoners, semantic web services (OWL-S, WSMO).