SenseBox - A generic sensor platform for the web of things

Abstract

Applications of the Web of Things reach from smart shoes posting your running performance online, over the localization of goods in the production chain, to computing the insurance cost of cars based on the actually driven kilometers. Thereby, Web of Things applications follow the REST paradigm, i.e. access to things and their properties is offered via REST APIs. This allows an easy meshing of web-enabled things into existing Web applications. This work introduces the SenseBox, a small computing device equipped (1) with different sensors to perceive its environment and (2) with a Web server and an according REST API which makes it available as a first class citizen on the Web. In an example use case of this generic sensor platform, the SenseBox is deployed next to a road and its in-built ultra sonic sensor is used to detect the number of bypassing cars and eventually determine the traffic density. © 2012 ICST Institute for Computer Science, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering.