Ontology-Based Service Description, Discovery, and Matching in Distributed Embedded Real-Time Systems

The service composition process depends on effective service discovery, matching, and selection. Although, service discovery and matching has been thoroughly researched for software services, an effective service discovery and matching mechanism is needed for services representing device functionality. In this chapter, an ontology-based service description method and service discovery and matching mechanism is proposed for Distributed Embedded Real-Time Systems (DERTS). For service description, the existing ontology specification OWL-S is modified to make it suitable for DERTS. The proposed mechanism was applied to a scenario of Smart Home case study for testing. The proposed service description method and discovery and matching mechanism set foundations can be used for the dynamic service composition in DERTS and in any ubiquitous environment.