Towards a reference architecture for an integration platform for diverse smart object technologies

Although the cost-effective integration of diverse smart object technologies like radio-frequency identification (RFID), real-time locating systems (RTLS), and wireless sensor networks (WSN) into existing enterprise infrastructures is very important for companies, integration aspects are ignored by researches frequently. Furthermore it could be observed, that existing commercial middleware products aiming at integration ignore the trend of consolidation between diverse smart object technologies by focusing on passive RFID only. This paper introduces the concept of an integration platform for diverse smart object technologies together with an abstract software architecture. The functionalities that such a platform should provide are derived from the requirements of real world applications and aim at drastically reduced integration costs.