ETH Zurich : Computer Science : Pervasive Computing : Distributed Systems : Research : Internet of Things

The Internet of Things

A Research Topic of the Distributed Systems Group

The Internet of Things represents a vision in which the Internet extends into the real world embracing everyday objects. Physical items are no longer disconnected from the virtual world, but can be controlled remotely and can act as physical access points to Internet services. The Internet of Things vision is grounded in the belief that the steady advances in microelectronics, communications and information technology we have witnessed in recent years will continue into the foreseeable future.

"Smart" objects play a key role in the Internet of Things vision, since embedded communication and information technology have the potential to revolutionize the utility of these objects. Using sensors, they are able to perceive their context, and via built-in networking capabilities they would be able to communicate with each other, access Internet services and interact with people.

One logical development of the Internet of Things is to leverage the World Wide Web and its many technologies as an infrastructure for smart objects. Our recently established "Web of Things" initiative uses simple embedded HTTP servers and Web 2.0 technology. In the Web of Things, smart objects and their services are typically addressed via URIs and controlled via a simple interface using a few well-defined HTTP methods such as GET and PUT. Low-end devices can also be connected through the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP), a leight-weight protocol providing mechanisms similar to HTTP.

One of the enabling technologies for the Internet of Things is RFID (Radio Frequency Identification). It is primarily used to identify objects from a distance, but can also be used to determine the approximate location of objects provided the position of the reader is known. In our research group, we have launched Fosstrak, a leading open-source software suite for RFID deployments.

See also the following related items:

• RFID (topic)
• Sensor Networks (topic)
• Web of Things (topic)
• Embedded Web Resources (project)
• Fosstrak (formerly Accada) (project)

Participating Researchers

Matthias Kovatsch, Benedikt Ostermaier (until 2015), Christian Flörkemeier (until 2014), Christof Roduner (until 2014), Simon Mayer (until 2014)

Selected Publications

See the Publications of the Distributed Systems Group page for a full listing of our publications.

• Ji Eun Kim, Tassilo Barth, George Boulos, John Yackovich, Christian Beckel, Daniel Mosse
  Seamless Integration of Heterogeneous Devices and Access Control in Smart Homes and its Evaluation.
  Intelligent Buildings International, May 2015
  doi: 10.1080/17508975.2015.1018116
  Abstract, BibTeX
  
  
• Simon Mayer, Yassin N. Hassan, Gábor Sörös
  A Magic Lens for Revealing Device Interactions in Smart Environments.
  Proceedings of the SIGGRAPH Asia 2014 Symposium on Mobile Graphics and Interactive Applications (MGIA 2014), Shenzhen, China. ACM, December 2014
  Abstract, BibTeX, Paper (.pdf)
  Other files: Talk, Video
  
  
• Simon Mayer, Yassin N. Hassan, Gábor Sörös
  Demo: Magic Lenses for Revealing Device Interactions in Smart Environments.
  Live demo at the SIGGRAPH Asia 2014 Symposium on Mobile Graphics and Interactive Applications (MGIA 2014), Shenzhen, China. ACM, December 2014
  Abstract, BibTeX, Paper (.pdf)
  Other files: Video
  
  
• Simon Mayer, Nadine Inhelder, Ruben Verborgh, Rik Van de Walle, Friedemann Mattern
  Configuration of Smart Environments Made Simple - Combining Visual Modeling with Semantic Metadata and Reasoning.
  Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on the Internet of Things (IoT 2014). Cambridge, MA, USA, October 2014
  Abstract, BibTeX, Paper (.pdf)
  
  
• Matthias Kovatsch, Martin Lanter, Zach Shelby
  Californium: Scalable Cloud Services for the Internet of Things with CoAP.
  Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on the Internet of Things (IoT 2014). Cambridge, MA, USA, October 2014
  Abstract, BibTeX, Paper (.pdf)
  Best paper
  
  
• Simon Mayer, Nadine Inhelder, Ruben Verborgh, Rik Van de Walle
  User-friendly Configuration of Smart Environments (Demo).
  Proceedings of the 2014 IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications (PerCom 2014). pp. 163-165, Budapest, Hungary, March 2014
  Abstract, BibTeX, Paper (.pdf)
  
  
• Simon Mayer, Gianin Basler
  Semantic Metadata to Support Device Interaction in Smart Environments.
  Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on the Web of Things (WoT 2013). Zurich, Switzerland, September 2013
  Abstract, BibTeX, Paper (.pdf)
  
  
• Matthias Kovatsch
  CoAP for the Web of Things: From Tiny Resource-constrained Devices to the Web Browser.
  Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on the Web of Things (WoT 2013). Zurich, Switzerland, September 2013
  Abstract, BibTeX, Paper (.pdf)
  Best paper
  
  
• Simon Mayer, Gianin Basler
  Poster: Embedded Semantic Metadata to Support Device Interaction in Smart Environments.
  Adjunct Proceedings of the 2013 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp 2013). Zurich, Switzerland, September 2013
  Abstract, BibTeX, Paper (.pdf)
  
  
• Simon Mayer, Markus Schalch, Marian George, Gábor Sörös
  Poster: Device Recognition for Intuitive Interaction with the Web of Things.
  Adjunct Proceedings of the 2013 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp 2013). Zurich, Switzerland, September 2013
  Abstract, BibTeX, Paper (.pdf)
  
  
• Simon Mayer, Christian Beckel, Bram Scheidegger, Claude Barthels, Gábor Sörös
  Demo: Uncovering Device Whispers in Smart Homes.
  Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia (MUM 2012), Ulm, Germany. December 2012
  Abstract, BibTeX, Paper (.pdf)
  Other files: Poster
  
  
• Simon Mayer, Dominique Guinard, Vlad Trifa
  Searching in a Web-based Infrastructure for Smart Things.
  Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on the Internet of Things (IoT 2012). Wuxi, China, October 2012
  Abstract, BibTeX, Paper (.pdf)
  Download accompanying poster here
  
  
• Matthias Kovatsch, Martin Lanter, Simon Duquennoy
  Actinium: A RESTful Runtime Container for Scriptable Internet of Things Applications.
  Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on the Internet of Things (IoT 2012). pp. 135--142, Wuxi, China, October 2012
  Abstract, BibTeX, Paper (.pdf)
  
  
• Matthias Kovatsch, Simon Mayer, Benedikt Ostermaier
  Moving Application Logic from the Firmware to the Cloud: Towards the Thin Server Architecture for the Internet of Things.
  Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Innovative Mobile and Internet Services in Ubiquitous Computing (IMIS 2012). Palermo, Italy, July 2012
  Abstract, BibTeX, Paper (.pdf)
  
  
• Ji Eun Kim, George Boulos, John Yackovich, Tassilo Barth, Christian Beckel, Daniel Mosse
  Seamless Integration of Heterogeneous Devices and Access Control in Smart Homes.
  Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Intelligent Environments (IE 2012). pp. 206-213, Guanajuato, Mexico, June 2012
  Abstract, BibTeX, Paper (.pdf)
  
  
• Simon Mayer, David S. Karam
  A Computational Space for the Web of Things.
  Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on the Web of Things (WoT 2012). Newcastle, UK, June 2012
  Abstract, BibTeX, Paper (.pdf)
  
  
• Dominique Guinard, Iulia Ion, Simon Mayer
  In Search of an Internet of Things Service Architecture: REST or WS-*? A Developers’ Perspective.
  Proceedings of Mobiquitous 2011 (8th International ICST Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Systems). pp. 326-337, Copenhagen, Denmark, December 2011
  Abstract, BibTeX, Paper (.pdf)
  
  
• Matthias Kovatsch, Simon Duquennoy, Adam Dunkels
  A Low-Power CoAP for Contiki.
  Proceedings of the 8th IEEE International Conference on Mobile Ad-hoc and Sensor Systems (MASS 2011). Valencia, Spain, October 2011
  Abstract, BibTeX, Paper (.pdf)
  
  
• Simon Mayer
  Service Integration - A Web of Things Perspective.
  W3C Workshop on Data and Services Integration. Bedford, MA, USA, October 2011
  BibTeX, Paper (.pdf)
  
  
• Elmar Zeeb, Guido Moritz, Christian Beckel, Heinz Serfas, Frank Golatowski, Dirk Timmermann
  Requirements for Smart Home Applications and Realization with WS4D-PipesBox.
  Proceedings of the 6th IEEE International Workshop on Service Oriented Architectures in Converging Networked Environments (SOCNE 2011). Toulouse, France, September 2011
  Abstract, BibTeX, Paper (.pdf)
  
  
• Simon Mayer, Dominique Guinard
  An Extensible Discovery Service for Smart Things.
  Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on the Web of Things (WoT 2011). San Francisco, CA, USA, June 2011
  Abstract, BibTeX, Paper (.pdf)
  
  
• Matthias Kovatsch
  Firm Firmware and Apps for the Internet of Things.
  Proceedings of the 2nd ICSE Workshop on Software Engineering for Sensor Network Applications (SESENA 2011). Honolulu, HI, USA, May 2011
  Abstract, BibTeX, Paper (.pdf)
  
  
• Vlad Trifa, Dominique Guinard, Simon Mayer
  Leveraging the Web for a Distributed Location-aware Infrastructure for the Real World.
  In: Erik Wilde, Cesare Pautasso (Eds.): REST: From Research to Practice. Springer, ISBN 978-1-4419-8302-2, pp. 381-400, New York Dordrecht Heidelberg London, 2011
  Abstract, BibTeX, Paper (.pdf)
  
  
• Simon Mayer, Dominique Guinard, Vlad Trifa
  Facilitating the Integration and Interaction of Real-World Services for the Web of Things.
  Urban Internet of Things – Towards Programmable Real-time Cities (UrbanIOT 2010); Workshop at the Internet of Things 2010 Conference (IoT 2010). Tokyo, Japan, November 2010
  Abstract, BibTeX, Paper (.pdf)
  
  
• Marc Langheinrich
  A Survey of RFID Privacy Approaches.
  Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, Vol. 13, No. 6, pp. 413-421, August 2009
  Abstract, BibTeX, Paper (.pdf)
  
  
• Steve Hinske, Matthias Lampe, Sara Price, Nicola Yuill, Marc Langheinrich
  Kingdom of the Knights: Evaluation of a Seamlessly Augmented Toy Environment for Playful Learning.
  Proceedings of the 8th International ACM SIGCHI Conference on Interaction Design and Children (IDC) 2009. Como, Italy, June 2009
  Abstract, BibTeX, Paper (.pdf)
  
  
• Steve Hinske, Marc Langheinrich
  W41K: Digitally Augmenting Traditional Game Environments.
  In: Mike Fraser, Steve Benford (Eds.): Proceedings of Tangible and Embedded Interaction 2009, February 16-18, 2009, Cambridge, UK. ACM, New York, NY, USA, February 2009
  Abstract, BibTeX, Paper (.pdf)
  
  
• Stefan Götz, Christian Beckel, Tobias Heer, Klaus Wehrle
  ADAPT: A Semantics-oriented Protocol Architecture.
  In: Karin A. Hummel and James P. G. Sterbenz (Ed.): Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Self-Organizing Systems (IWSOS) Vienna, Austria, 2008. LNCS, Vol. 5343, Springer, pp. 287-292, Berlin Heidelberg New York, December 2008
  Abstract, BibTeX, Paper (.pdf)
  
  
• Steve Hinske, Marc Langheinrich
  RFIDice – Augmenting Tabletop Dice with RFID.
  Journal of Virtual Reality and Broadcasting, Vol. 5, No. 4, September 2008
  Abstract, BibTeX, Paper (.pdf)
  
  
• Marc Langheinrich
  RFID und die Zukunft der Privatsphäre.
  In: Alexander Rossnagel, Tom Sommerlatte, Udo Winand (Eds.): Digitale Visionen – Zur Gestaltung allgegenwärtiger Informationstechnologien. Springer, pp. 43-68, Berlin Heiderlberg New York, 2008
  Abstract, BibTeX, Paper (.pdf)
  
  
• Marc Langheinrich, Remo Marti
  Practical Minimalist Cryptography for RFID Privacy.
  IEEE Systems Journal, Special Issue on RFID Technology, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 115-128, December 2007
  Abstract, BibTeX, Paper (.pdf)
  
  
• Christian Floerkemeier, Christof Roduner, Matthias Lampe
  RFID Application Development with the Accada Middleware Platform.
  IEEE Systems Journal, Special Issue on RFID Technology, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 82-94, December 2007
  Abstract, BibTeX, Paper (.pdf)
  
  
• Marc Langheinrich
  Secure Localized Storage Based on Super-Distributed RFID-Tag Infrastructures.
  Journal of Location Based Services, Vol. 1, No. 3, Taylor & Francis, pp. 208-230, September 2007
  Abstract, BibTeX, Paper (.pdf)
  
  
• Christof Roduner, Marc Langheinrich, Christian Floerkemeier, Beat Schwarzentrub
  Operating Appliances with Mobile Phones – Strengths and Limits of a Universal Interaction Device.
  In: Anthony LaMarca, Marc Langheinrich, Khai Truong (Eds.): Pervasive Computing. 5th International Conference, PERVASIVE 2007, Toronto, Canada, May 13-16, 2007, Proceedings. LNCS, Vol. 4480, Springer, pp. 198-215, Berlin Heidelberg New York, May 2007
  Abstract, BibTeX, Paper (.pdf)
  
  
• Christian Frank, Philipp Bolliger, Christof Roduner, Wolfgang Kellerer
  Objects Calling Home: Locating Objects Using Mobile Phones.
  Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Pervasive Computing (Pervasive 2007). LNCS, Vol. 4480, Springer, Toronto, Canada, May 2007
  Abstract, BibTeX, Paper (.pdf)
  
  
• Steve Hinske, Marc Langheinrich
  An RFID-based Infrastructure for Automatically Determining the Position and Orientation of Game Objects in Tabletop Games.
  In: Carsten Magerkurth, Carsten Röcker (Eds.): Concepts and Technologies for Pervasive Games – A Reader for Pervasive Gaming Research. Vol. 1, Shaker Verlag, pp. 311-336, Aachen, Germany, 2007
  Abstract, BibTeX, Paper (.pdf)
  
  
• Marc Langheinrich
  Privacy by Design – Principles of Privacy-Aware Ubiquitous Systems.
  In: Gregory D. Abowd, Barry Brumitt, Steven A. Shafer (Eds.): Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp 2001). LNCS No. 2201, Springer-Verlag, pp. 273-291, Atlanta, USA, 2001
  Abstract, BibTeX, Paper (.pdf)
  
  

Related Student Projects

The following table lists corresponding student projects in our group. Note that some descriptions will be in German.