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9.6 Semantic Home Control

9.6.1 Description

This use case demonstrates co-operation between two independent M2M applications. The co-operation is made possible because one application can find the other application through semantic information about the application's resources. This semantic information is available in the M2M System.

One application is a building management system (BMS) for a big apartment house. The BMS is operated by a building manager, e.g. the owner of the apartment house. BMS has knowledge about the blueprints of all the apartments in the house, e.g. it knows which heater is located in which room (heaters are assumed to be equipped with temperature sensors/actuators).

The other application is a home energy management system (HEMS). It has been subscribed by the tenant of one of the apartments. HEMS controls the heaters of the apartment (among other purposes).
Because HEMS can find the resources of BMS - e.g. the resource that represents the tenant's apartment and the heaters therein HEMS can configure itself automatically (and can adapt to changes over time) and doesn't require human configuration.
Finding the right resources in the M2M System is made possible through semantic annotation of the resources

9.6.2 Source

oneM2M-MAS-2013-0020 Semantic use cases from ETSI Semantics TR

9.6.3 Actors

  • Building manager: is running a Building management system (BMS) for his apartment house.
  • Tenant of an apartment: has subscribed to a home energy management system (HEMS) for his apartment.
  • M2M service provider: is providing access to the M2M System for both applications, BMS and HEMS.
  • Building management system (BMS): is a M2M network application.
  • Home energy management system (HEMS): is a M2M network application.

9.6.4 Pre-conditions

The Building management system (BMS) is an M2M application that contains all the information needed to manage a large apartment house. In particular it contains the construction details of the tenant's apartment, where the doors and windows are located, where the heaters are, their capacity, etc. The BMS is used for overall control of the building, but information relevant for individual apartments (e.g. control of the heaters, built-in sensors for windows and doors) can be made available to authorized tenants. In case of fire, the complete blueprint of the house can be made available to fire-fighters.
In the M2M System the BMS makes its information available as M2M resources, similar to as if they were data transmitted by a device. E.g. the complete apartment, individual rooms, their heaters and windows could be represented as M2M resources.

A new tenant is renting an apartment in the house. As he is moving in, he also subscribes to a general-purpose home energy management system (HEMS) that promised a very efficient heater control. E.g. the HEMS always uses the best available electricity tariff and the heating is turned off when windows are open.
As part of the subscription, the HEMS is granted access to the respective resources used by the BMS in the M2M system. In particular, the building manager has permitted access of the tenant's HEMS to those resources of the BMS that are needed for energy management of the tenant's apartment (rooms, heaters, door-and window sensors, etc.). Other resources not needed for this task are not exposed to the HEMS.

9.6.5 Triggers

None

9.6.6 Normal Flow

The newly subscribed HEMS will immediately start discovering new devices in the apartment. Once the BMS has granted access, the HEMS will discover the resources of the BMS that are related to the apartment. Using the semantic description of the devices the HEMS can immediately find out about the available rooms, heaters, temperature sensors, etc. With this knowledge it can configure itself without any human intervention.

Since the BMS has configured its devices to be represented in the M2M System as abstract devices, the HEMS can use this information to immediately control the devices using the offered abstract command set. Consequently, HEMS does not have to understand the specifics (e.g. specific protocol) of a particular heater control.

Later, the building manager installs a new device into the tenant's apartment which can help in efficient energy management. This new device is also managed by BMS. Using the selection rule of the HEMS service, the new device will get immediately available to the HEMS. The HEMS will discover the new device and will use it to control the apartment's energy consumption.

9.6.7 Alternative Flow

None

9.6.8 Post-conditions

None

9.6.9 High Level Illustration

None

9.6.10 Potential Requirements

  1. The M2M System shall support a common (e.g. per vertical domain) semantic data model (e.g. represented by Ontology) available to M2M application.
  2. The M2M System shall provide discovery capabilities that enable the discovery of M2M resources based on their semantic information, e.g. semantic categories and relationship among them. (e.g. all heaters and windows in a room; the room in which a window is located...).
  3. The M2M System shall provide representation and discovery functionality of real-world entities (rooms, windows) that are not necessarily physical devices.
  4. The M2M system shall be able to map control commands issued towards an abstract device to the concrete commands of a specific device.