The technology of representing Internet of Things (IoT) platforms, applications and the IoT devices by a world wide web is known as Web of Things (WoT). It will provide their accessibility and availability through computer software based generated virtual representations. The WoT uses Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) to access the IoT platforms, applications and the IoT devices by addressing them through web technologies such as scripting APIs at the services layer, Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and the Representational state transfer (REST) architecture.
The Web of Things (WoT) is combination of objects with their virtual representations. These virtual objects have ability to store extra information of the objects and its background. In addition, many approaches are being deployed to offer personalized view of website contents and the help in navigation. Similarly, some approaches can be used to adapt computer generated (virtual) representation of the physical devices and sensors in order to customize the communication with the physical objects.
Overall, the main concept of WoT is enhancement of IoT by combing smart things to internet as well as on the application layers (Web). It reduces the barrier among the physical and virtual worlds. Researchers have presented an architecture of WoT; it consists of integrations (direct and indirect) of smart electronic devices to Web and paradigms of Web service.
Authors, proposed a system that will enable the owner of smart devices (smart energy meters) to share their power consumption on with an individual or group of friends on the existing social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn). The purpose of this frame work is to expose all the existing IoT platforms through a new class of webservers which has ability to support open framework for WoT.
WoT Challenges and solutions
The platforms load scale flexibility in WoT can be designed from cloud-based platforms. For instance, there are many open sources compose platforms mentioned by Dave Raggett. The security policies in WoT can be defined by the service owners through the dynamic monitoring, access control and static flow analysis. Moreover, for market deployment of WoT and providing services there is need of standard repositories and vocabularies to highlight the interfaces. Dave Raggett also mentioned about monetizing services challenges for creating a healthy ecosystem. He suggested that for a webscale ecosystem there will be requirement of standards which should be independent of any specific vendors.
As like most of the technologies, security is one of key challenge for WoT. We need to make sure that our confidential information (financial resources) and privacy are protected from the cyber-attacks. Although, data encryption approaches are important for security but we need more strong authentication systems for users, services, applications and devices.
Another challenge for WoT is protocols of IoT. Current, IoT devices are not fully software upgradeable that create a risk for security. This problem can be resolved by using the device gateways that can be upgrade from software. This approach will provide strong security for WoT.
WoT technologies, enablers, and protocols
The Web of Things (WoT) is a concept of connecting smart technologies and integrating them into new applications, decision making and asset management. It will boost the market and bring business opportunities for information technology. The smart cars and robots will open opportunities and application in the field of wireless communication. The Internet of Energy (IoE) and Internet of Vehicles (IoV) technologies are opening door for the smart transportation systems .
Embedded web servers are playing a vital role in adaptation and growth of WoT. These serves enable communication between the smart objects and the HTTP protocol. RFID tagged products are gained momentum in WoT and IoT. A RFID detector reads the information from the tag and then decode that information from the internet.
As we know, IPv4 cannot provide a large range of addresses for IoT and WoT application. This problem will be solved by IPv6 because it has more IP address than the IPv4. The IPv6 over low power wireless personal area networks (6LoWPAN) is also considered as an important enabler of WoT.