SandS

SandS ia an ICT ecosystem that rules the white appliances of a home in the name of their user according to his/her own preferences.
It is based on a three layer architecture where on the bottom there are appliances interfaced to Internet, on the top a social social network that we call Social Network of Facts (SNoF) and in the middle a domestic hub (DI).
Functioning and use
Like with other devices, a few additional electronics may enable the appliance (for instance a washing machine) to achieve a top performance by overriding the entire operation cycle in its micro controller no matter how long a lifespan the hardware has. In this way, the user can select completely at his or her own convenience the parameters for the washing machine (such as water temperature, soaking time, motor r.p.m). Since deciding on these parameters may prove to be too arduous a task for a single user, s/he may assign the task to a Social Network.

The social network assisting the user is a Social Network of Facts where members share knowledge in order to automatically generate smart instruction lists (recipes) electronically dispatched from the cloud to household appliances in response to task requests. A member sends requests such as "I want to wash blue cotton trousers stained with grease" or "I'd like a crusty loaf of white bread, not too soft". The request is processed by a set of computational intelligence tools. They constitute the Networked Intelligence of this ecosystem, which profits from a huge knowledge base consisting of appliance technical sheets, best practices and the entire log of previous transactions in terms of standard triplets <request, recipe, evaluation>. The recipe evaluation by the task requesters is the main social capital of the SNoF feeding the algorithms which learn to produce smart recipes.
Recipe generation is a distinguishing feature of SNoF: no documents or consensus but facts make the appliance function. The recipe generation strategy is dichotomic: if the requested task is similar to a previous one, then mine in the database among existing recipes; otherwise produce a new recipe ad hoc with granular computing techniques. Computational Intelligence modules are involved in this automatic task under the Networked Intelligence umbrella.
To adapt the recipe to special home constraints (user preferences included) -- the home rules—a slice in the cloud is dedicated to: 1) interface the user with the ecosystem and 2) split the recipe into instructions that are timely and properly provided to the appliance. An instance of home rules may be: " Do not run any noisy appliance from 3 to 5 p.m. when people are at home"
The physical chain of the system is comprised by:
* a household appliance connected to an Arduino board which communicates with a DI by exchanging messages through WiFi.
* the connection manager between appliances and DI.
* physical constraints contrasted with user and appliance ontologies.
* the ecosystem database (EDB) and the Networked Intelligence used to provide the best recipe.
The companion data piping consists of:
* TCP, MQTT protocols with a SSL/TLS layer on top to make the messages secure.
* a node.js architecture for managing the data flow through DI.
* a well suited traffic between the intelligent modules (DI,NI,EDB) of the system.
If a user requests a recipe, s/he doesn't want to transfer to a third party, possibly an appliance manufacturer, decisions on aspects of his/her life (remember the smart fridge that orders food from the grocery store in your name). Rather, s/he asks the social network to produce a recipe that is compliant with the specific requests of the task at hand and his/her relative personal preferences, in terms for instance of green goals, washed clothes softness, etc., and local environment conditions, maybe regarding electrical rates. In any case, the final word comes from the user, who decides whether or not to accept, modify or simply reject the recipe suggestion. The SNoF user is called an eahouker, an abbreviation of the two words easier and worker taken from an old book written by N. C. Reynolds in 1929 " Easier Housework by Better Equipment".
A Mockup version of the system is currently in operation at the University of Milan labs *. Three Bread Maker, two Washing Machine and one Dish Washer are ruled, monitored and controlled through either a WEB application or an Android application. With these tools users can start recipe or control the different parts that comprise the appliances.
The SANDS ecosystem derives form the European Commission project Social&Smart - SandS * Sands Project whose goal is to build a physical and computational networked infrastructure allowing household appliances to better meet the needs of their owners. The program is part of the Seventh Framework Programme within the Future Internet framework FIRE * FIRE - Future Internet Research and Experimentation.

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu