Secure Open Federation of IoT Platforms Through Interledger Technologies -- The SOFIE Approach
This addresses the issue of lock-ins, privacy, and reduced functionality for users and society in IoT systems, offering a practical approach to enable new business models.
The paper tackles the problem of interoperability among fragmented IoT platforms by presenting SOFIE, a solution that uses Distributed Ledger Technologies to federate existing platforms without modifications, enabling real-life pilots like food supply chain tracking and electricity grid balancing with EV charging.
The lack of interoperability among IoT platforms has led to a fragmented environment, where the users and society as a whole suffer from lock-ins, lack of privacy, and reduced functionality. This paper presents SOFIE, a solution for federating the existing IoT platforms in an open and secure manner using Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) and without requiring modifications to the IoT platforms, and describes how SOFIE is used to enable two complex real life pilots: food supply chain tracking from field to fork and electricity distribution grid balancing with guided electrical vehicle (EV) charging. SOFIE's main contribution is to provide interoperability between IoT systems while also enabling new functionality and business models.