AIoTES: Setting the principles for semantic interoperable and modern IoT-enabled reference architecture for Active and Healthy Ageing ecosystems

• Published in: Computer communications Vol. 177; pp. 96 - 111
• Main Authors: Valero, Clara I., Gil, Alejandro M. Medrano, Gonzalez-Usach, Regel, Julian, Matilde, Fico, Giuseppe, Arredondo, Maria Teresa, Stavropoulos, Thanos G., Strantsalis, Dimitrios, Voulgaridis, Antonis, Roca, Felipe, Jara, Antonio J., Serrano, Martín, Zappa, Achille, Khan, Yasar, Guillen, Sergio, Sala, Pilar, Belsa, Andreu, Votis, Konstantinos, Palau, Carlos E.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01.09.2021
• Subjects: Active and Healthy Ageing; Ecosystem; Internet of Things; Marketplace; Platforms and services; Reference architecture; Semantic interoperability; Marketplace; Ecosystem; Active and Healthy Ageing; Reference architecture; Semantic interoperability; Internet of Things; Platforms and services
• ISSN: 0140-3664; 1873-703X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.comcom.2021.06.010

The average life expectancy of the world’s population is increasing and the healthcare systems sooner than later will be compromised by its reduced capacity and its highly economic cost; in addition, the age distribution of the population is leading towards the older spectrum. This trend will lead to immeasurable and unexpected economic problems and social changes. In order to face up this challenge and complex economic and social problem, it is necessary to rely on the appropriate digital tools and technological infrastructures for ensuring that the elderly are properly cared in their everyday living environments and they can live independently for longer. This article presents ACTIVAGE IoT Ecosystem Suite (AIoTES), a concrete reference architecture and its implementation process that addresses these issues and that was designed within the first European Large Scale Pilot, ACTIVAGE, a H2020 funded project by the European Commission with the objective of creating sustainable ecosystems for Active and Healthy Ageing (AHA) based on Internet of Things and big data technologies. AIoTES offers platform level semantic interoperability, with security and privacy, as well as Big Data and Ecosystem tools. AIoTES enables and promotes the creation, exchange and adoption of cross-platform services and applications for AHA. The number of existing AHA services and solutions are quite large, especially when state-of-the-art technology is introduced, however a concrete architecture such as AIoTES gains more importance and relevance by providing a vision for establishing a complete ecosystem, that looks for supporting a larger variety of AHA services, rather than claiming to be a unique solution for all the AHA domain problems. AIoTES has been successfully validated by testing all of its components, individually, integrated, and in real-world environments with 4345 direct users. Each validation is contextualized in 11 Deployment Sites (DS) with 13 Validation Scenarios covering the heterogeneity of the AHA-IoT needs. These results also show a clear path for improvement, as well as the importance for standardization efforts in the ever-evolving AHA-IoT domain.