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The Web of Things

A Research Topic of the Distributed Systems Group

A central concern in the area of pervasive computing has been the integration of digital artifacts with the physical world. In particular, the "Internet of Things" has essentially explored the development of applications built upon various networked physical objects.

Inhabitants of the physical world such as sensor and actuator networks, embedded devices, appliances and everyday digitally enhanced objects are still mostly disconnected from the Web and form a myriad of small incompatible islands. Increasingly, embedded devices and consumer electronics as for example the Chumby, Gumstix, or Nabaztag get Internet connectivity but cannot be controlled and monitored without using dedicated software and proprietary interfaces. As a consequence, smart things are hard to integrate into composite applications, which hinders the realization of a flexible ecosystem of devices that can be reused serendipitously.

In the Web of Things (WoT), we would like to consider smart things as being first-class citizens of the Web. This way Web tools and techniques (e.g., browsers, search engines, caching systems, Comet, Atom syndication, instant messaging), languages (e.g., HTML, JavaScript, mashups) and interaction techniques (e.g., browsing, linking, bookmarking) can be directly applied to the real world. We position the Web of Things as an refinement of the Internet of Things by integrating smart things not only to the Internet (i.e., to the network), but also to the Web (i.e., to the application layer).

The project also has its own community blog and portal on webofthings.com, as well as its own workshop.

See also the following related items:

Participating Researchers

Matthias Kovatsch, Benedikt Ostermaier (until 2015), Simon Mayer (until 2014), Dominique Guinard (until 2012), Vlad Trifa (until 2012)

Selected Publications

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

Related Student Projects

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

TypeTitleStudentSupervisorSemester
M RESTful Electric Vehicle Charging Martin Bochenek (extern)Matthias KovatschFS 16
M The Web of Things for Automation Controllers Ganesh RamanathanMatthias KovatschFS 16
L The Copper (Cu) CoAP user-agent for Chrome Arthur Kurath,
Christian Hagedorn
Matthias KovatschFS 16
M Hypermedia Controls for the Internet of Things Yassin N. HassanMatthias KovatschHS 15
L A Practical Approach to Web Semantics for M2M Communication Yassin Hassan,
(Matthias Kovatsch)
Matthias Kovatsch,
Simon Mayer
HS 14
B/L Visualizing Web Interactions Yassin HassanSimon MayerFS 14
M Semantics for Smart Things: Machine Interaction within Smart Environments Nadine InhelderSimon MayerHS 13
B Trip Optimization Recommendations for Drivers Adrian WickiSimon MayerHS 13
B Context-aware real-time Interaction with Cars Simon JutzSimon Mayer,
Leyna Sadamori
HS 13
B Context-aware real-time Interaction with Cars Thomas MeierLeyna Sadamori,
Simon Mayer
HS 13
B Device Recognition for WoT Interaction Sezer GülerSimon MayerHS 13
M Ubiquitous Context-aware Device Control Gianin BaslerSimon MayerHS 12
B Smart Device Association from Shared Audio Context Michael OchSimon MayerHS 12
L Uncovering Device Whispers Bram Scheidegger,
Claude Barthels
Simon Mayer,
Christian Beckel,
Gábor Sörös
FS 12
B Creating Briefings from Heterogeneous Sources (II) Marco PolteraSimon MayerFS 12
B Application Kernels for Smart Home Environments Gianluca VinzensMatthias KovatschFS 12
B Creating Briefings from Heterogeneous Sources (I) Raffael BuffSimon MayerFS 12
B Actinium: An App Server for the Smart Home Martin LanterMatthias KovatschHS 11
M Alltagsgegenstände an das Web anbinden / Connecting everyday objects to the Web Andreas BörnertBenedikt OstermaierFS 11
M A Computational Marketplace for the Web of Things David KaramSimon MayerFS 11
B Upgrading AutoWoT Claude BarthelsSimon MayerFS 11
B Adaptive User Interfaces for Smart Things Andreas TschofenSimon MayerFS 11
S Building an Eco-System of Embedded Devices for the Web of Things Yuan PengDominique Guinard,
Vlad Trifa
HS 09
M A Smart Gateway Infrastructure for the Web of Things Simon MayerDominique Guinard,
Vlad Trifa
HS 09
M Mobile Discovery in a Web of Things S. HongDominique GuinardHS 09
M Building a RESTful Internet of Things (EPCIS) Mathias MuellerDominique Guinard,
Christof Roduner
HS 09
M Physical and Mobile Mashups for the Web of Things Rita Azucena Guillen AguilarDominique GuinardHS 09
S Social Sharing in the Web of Things Mathias FischerDominique GuinardFS 09
M Web-oriented Infrastructure for Monitoring and Service Interaction for Augmented Environments Vlatko DavidovskiVlad TrifaFS 09
M Prototyping the Web of Things Fabian SchlupBenedikt OstermaierFS 09
M Towards RESTful embedded devices - loosely coupled sensing devices to face real-world challenges Samuel WielandVlad TrifaHS 08
ETH ZurichDistributed Systems Group
Last updated January 1 1970 01:00:00 AM MET ko