Towards Interoperability of Entity-Based and Event-Based IoT Platforms: The Case of NGSI and EPCIS Standards

Abstract

With the advancement of IoT devices and thanks to the unprecedented visibility and transparency they provide, diverse IoT-based applications are being developed. With the proliferation of IoT, both the amount and type of data items captured have increased dramatically. The data generated by IoT devices reside in different organizations and systems, and a major barrier to utilizing the data is the lack of interoperability among the standards used to capture the data. To reduce this barrier, two major standards have emerged: the Global Standards One (GS1) Electronic Product Code Information Service (EPCIS) and the FIWARE Next Generation Services Interface (NGSI). However, the two standards differ not only in the data encoding but also in the underlying philosophy of representing IoT data; namely, EPCIS is event-based, and NGSI is entity-based. Interoperability between FIWARE and EPCIS is essential for system integration. This paper presents OLIOT Mediation Gateway, now one of the incubated generic enablers offered by the FIWARE Foundation, that realizes the required interoperability between NGSI and EPCIS systems. It also demonstrates the applicability and feasibility of the Gateway by applying it to a real-life case study of integrating transparency systems used in a meat supply chain.

Policy, regulation, and institutional approaches to digital innovation in the wine sector: a cross-country comparison

“…At the sectoral level, many wine technology firms use their own proprietary standards to collate and analyse data. Resultingly, there is no common understanding of how the collated data are structured, how to exchange information with other parties, or how to curtail the exchange of information (Tolcha et al, 2021). This is problematic for industry-wide technologies, such as blockchain.…”

Demonstration of an Integrated Methodology for the Sustainable Valorisation of Bakery Former Food Products as a Pig Feed Ingredient: A Circular Bioeconomy Paradigm

“…For the development of an effective, transparent, and fully documented traceability system, there is a need for the adoption of standards and solutions that will allow the exchange of information related to products and events that occur at the various stages of production, processing, distribution, consumption, or/and disposal of products. Previous research investigated the standardisation of IoT data and platforms and highlighted GS1 EPCIS as one of the major standards [71]. In this project, the use of the Electronic Product Code Information System (EPCIS) Standard is chosen.…”

“…The EPCIS is a standard defined by GS1, a non-profit international organisation which provides specifications for the representation of product traceability information [72]. At this point, it is important to note that, for the use case of the IoF2020 regarding the tracing and tracking of pigs, the EPCIS event model was developed for meat transparency and traceability [71]. The GS1 global organisation has defined standards for such information exchange, providing the Electronic Product Code (EPC) standard as well as the EPCglobal Architecture Framework [73].…”

“…The GS1 Electronic Product Code Information System is a GS1 International Organisation standard that allows trading partners to share information about the physical movements and status of "items" as they travel through the entire supply chain, from business to business to the final consumer. The EPCIS standard is chosen by companies that focus on the tracking and tracing of products [71]. "Objects", in the context of EPCIS, usually refer either to physical objects that are identified (e.g., logistics units), or at the level of locations (e.g., warehouses, production units, etc.…”

Advancing Food Safety Through Iot: Real-Time Monitoring and Control Systems

“…Furthermore, IoT applications in food supply chains play a critical role in enhancing resource efficiency, traceability, and overall food safety standards (Jagtap & Rahimifard, 2019;Uchechukwu et al, 2023). The interoperability of IoT systems, particularly in the agri-food sector, is essential for managing the increasing complexity of communication between IoT devices and platforms (Tolcha et al, 2021). The convergence of IoT with AI, blockchain, and other technologies presents a transformative opportunity to advance food safety through real-time monitoring, control, and traceability systems.…”