Internet-based device communication protocol with the client/server role exchange

Abstract

Recently, the Internet-based communication method has been adopted as an open networking solution in the field of remote control and data acquisition. In the current Internet, most networking applications are developed according to the client-server approach. In this paper, we propose an innovative device communication protocol that exchanges the traditional role between client and server to provide a uniform device interface over the Internet. The proposed protocol is implemented as a networking application running on top of the standard TCP/IP protocols. Since the complicated server functionality is excluded from the field devices as a result, their functionality can be minimized as the thin client, thereby making them as small and light as possible in terms of H/W and protocol stack. Moreover, a common Web server is introduced to provide a uniform device interface over the Internet to various client devices. To validate our proposed protocol, we have built a test bed consisting of two types of field devices for security system over the Internet. From these experiments, we ensure that our proposed protocol has been validated, because it works correctly in function and satisfactorily in performance. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2004.