The Smart Object Description Language: Modeling Interaction Capabilities for Self-Reflection

Driven by the rapid growth in the area of the Internet of Things, everyday environments become increasingly smart and pervasive. Simultaneously, this development faces users with emerging challenges in interacting with pervasive environments. Due to the ongoing and often invisible embedding of functionality into everyday objects and environments, the wireless interconnection of devices and the increasing usage of natural interaction, interaction capabilities are no longer recognizable, obvious and easily accessible. A conceivable solution would be to enable smart devices and environments to self-explain their current interaction capabilities and functionality to the users based on their interconnection state. However, this requires a structured self-description of involved devices. Within this contribution, requirements for as well as the development of a self-description language for smart objects and their interaction capabilities is presented based on an in-depth analysis of currently existing smart objects.