CNS Core: Small: Collaborative Research: Context-Assisted Interactions in the Internet of Things

物联网（IoT）承诺“智能空间”可以感知和响应个人的需求。然而，今天的物联网应用还达不到这一宏伟愿景。应用程序通常不是个性化的，不响应动态，需要人工干预和知识才能工作。该项目构建了一个“中间件”，位于用户的应用程序和应用程序使用的物联网设备之间。这个中间件有三个必要的组件，以实现个性化物联网的长期愿景。首先，该项目开发了一种机制来验证和授权个人及其应用程序使用嵌入在周围环境中的设备。这使得应用程序甚至可以在全新的环境中运行，而无需用户执行复杂的手动步骤来设置物联网设备。其次，该项目创建算法和协议，以基于应用程序请求的上下文（包括环境的物理性质（例如，建筑环境或用户的运动）。这允许应用程序将直接使用特定IoT设备的行为委托给中间件。第三，该项目在应用程序和物联网设备之间构建反馈路径。这些路径收集应用程序使用物联网设备的成功（和失败）。这使得设备和中间件都可以随着时间的推移进行学习和适应。物联网是日常环境的核心。然而，现有技术阻止用户个性化空间的行为，特别是他们不“拥有”的空间。该项目的研究是实现个性化和沉浸式物联网体验愿景的关键路径。为了使应用程序隐式地使用物联网，物联网设备必须透明而有效地对用户及其应用程序进行身份验证。为了避免所有物联网设备的全局目录，应用程序必须动态发现上下文相关的物联网设备。这些都是该项目的关键工作。为了展示其贡献，该项目将部署一组微型测试平台，以验证结果并为物联网应用生成通用数据集。该项目还包括学生主导的研究项目，旨在过渡到博物馆质量的互动展览，展示物联网的潜力。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The Internet of Things (IoT) promises "smart spaces" that sense and respond to individuals' needs. However, today's IoT applications fall short of this grand vision. Applications are often not personalized, do not respond to dynamics, and require manual intervention and knowledge to work. This project builds a "middleware" that sits between a user's application and the IoT devices that the application uses. This middleware has three components necessary to the long-term vision of a personalized IoT. First, the project develops mechanisms to authenticate and authorize individuals and their applications to use devices embedded in the surroundings. This allows applications to operate even in completely new environments, without requiring the user to perform complex manual steps to set up the IoT devices. Second, the project creates algorithms and protocols to automatically select the IoT devices in the surroundings that an application should use, based on the context of an application's request, including the physical nature of the environment (e.g., the built environment or the user's movement). This allows applications to delegate the act of directly using particular IoT devices to the middleware. Third, this project constructs feedback pathways between applications and IoT devices. These pathways collect successes (and failures) of applications' uses of IoT devices. This allows both the devices and the middleware to learn and adapt over time.The IoT is central in everyday environments. However, the state of the art prevents users from personalizing the behavior of spaces, especially spaces they do not "own". This project's research is on the critical path to the vision of personalized and immersive IoT experiences. To make an application's use of the IoT implicit, IoT devices must transparently and efficiently authenticate users and their applications. To avoid a global catalog of all IoT devices, applications must dynamically discover contextually-relevant IoT devices. These are key efforts in this project. To demonstrate its contributions, this project will deploy a set of micro-testbeds that will validate the results and generate a general-purpose data set for IoT applications. The project also includes student-led research projects designed to transition to museum quality interactive exhibits showcasing the potential of the IoT.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.