IoT Agents

Connecting “objects” or “things” involves the need to overcome a set of problems arising in the different layers of the communication model. Using its data or acting upon them requires interaction with a heterogeneous environment of devices running different protocols (due to the lack of globally accepted standards), dispersed and accessible through multiple wireless technologies.

Devices have a lot of particularities so it is not feasible to provide a solution where one size fits all. They are resource constrained and can’t use full standard protocol stacks: they cannot transmit information too frequently due to battery drainage, they are not always reachable since they are connected through heterogeneous wireless networks, their communication protocols are too specific and lack integrated approach, and they use different data encoding languages, so it is tricky to find a global deployment.

There are three IoT typical use-case scenarios (combination of IoT GEs) described in the FIWARE IoT architecture. The simplest and more tested one is called “Common Simple Scenario” and it is depicted in the following picture:

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FIWARE IoT Device Management GE architecture

  • Orion ContextBroker: That remains as the main frontend for developers. Developers access IoT data as attributes of entities representing devices and Developers may also send commands to devices by updating command-related attributes, providing they have access rights for that operation. You can see the lastest version here
  • IoT Agents: These components stay at the southbound of the Orion ContextBroker and they are used by IoT integrators to connect devices in this scenario. IoT Agents support several IoT protocols with a modular architecture. Therefore, integrators need to determine first which protocol they will be using to connect devices and then select the right IoT Agent.

For simplicity, in this article Ultralight2.0/HTTP is explained. To find out more information plese visit Github site. If you are interested to connect your application to the internet of Things, keep on reading: