Ontology development in home automation used in automatic VE formation

Abstract

Ontologies are crucial in B2B electronic commerce in general and in the Virtual Enterprise scenario in particular, enabling the mutual understanding between multiple business participants. This paper considers the development of a specific ontology in the home automation business area, illustrated in the Virtual Enterprise formation process. The ontology developed for the home automation (domotics) domain enumerates different products, its attributes, mutual relations and implicit business rules. A case study is presented based on a real scenario where business participants are represented by multiple agents in the electronic market. © 2008 International Federation for Information Processing.