interfaces, wireless communication and networking. In the vision of ubicomp,
the computer as we use to know it today, has mostly (if not totally) disappeared.
It has become invisible and ambient. While IoT as such is not ubicomp (for
instance intelligent user interfaces are not clearly part of IoT field) it can be
argued that IoT offers means for implementing partly the ubicomp concept,
spreading intelligence among objects of extremely different natures, enabling
for coperation between objects and humans and creating awareness about the
surrounding (Context awareness) in a fully connected environment.
The intelligent features or Services implemented through this paradigm can be
enabled only if information about the objects, places, Devices, etc. is available
to those Services. We therefore talk about ―intelligent‖ ―smart‖ or more
specifically ―context-aware‖ Services. This only works if those objects, places,
Devices of interest can be uniquely identified at any point in time. The uID
architecture relies on an identification technique called ucode (ubiquitous code)
which can be considered as the cornerstone of the uID architecture. The ucode
model is a descriptive technique that establishes relationships between Physical
and Virtual Entities through relationships between ucodes.
The basic principles of the uID architecture consist of uniquely identifying
entities of interest with ucodes, maintaining databases that contain information
about the entities, ensuring data and privacy protection and opening this
platform through open APIs.
In order to enable those principles fundamental technologies and mechanisms
such as ucode structure, ucode tag, ucode readers and terminals, ucode
relational databases managing the entities information and ucode information
servers are used. These different components are detailed in the following
subsections. The simplified architecture shown in Figure 107 is taken from
[Koshizuka 2010].
uCode model
In the ucode model, unique identifiers are assigned to:
Objects: tangible objects of the real world (industrial product, piece of
art, everyday objects,..) as well as intangible ones like pieces of digital
media or source code; Spaces: monuments, streets, etc. Concepts: relationships between objects and spaces of the real world,
which are also named ―entities‖. Those relationships are used to define
complex context information, and are defined using a description
framework called uCode Relation (uCR) model. Simple context
information relates to objects and places directly.It is worth noting that the uniquely assigned code does not contain any
information about the entity. Relevant information about the tagged entity is
stored in an application Information Service which can be located by resolving