PUCC Activities on Overlay Networking Protocols and Metadata for Controlling and Managing Home Networks and Appliances

Many researches and standardizations have been done for controlling and managing home networks and appliances during past ten years. Such activities and technologies include the Universal Plug and Play (UPnP)/Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA), the Energy Conservation and Homecare Network (ECHONET), and the Continua Health Alliance. Such technologies control and manage specific home appliances. However, there have been no technologies and standards for controlling and managing heterogeneous home appliances in a consolidated manner. In addition, there are no standards that fully define technologies for controlling and managing home appliances outside home from mobile phones and cloud servers. In addition to the Internet, new networks such as home networks and sensor networks are emerging. Overlay networking is one of the most suitable technologies for communications among home appliances, home gateways (HGWs), mobile phones, and cloud servers over such heterogeneous networks. Metadata is also an important technology for describing various home appliances in a consistent manner. We have designed overlay networking protocols and metadata for controlling and managing heterogeneous home appliances. Peer-to-Peer Universal Computing Consortium (PUCC) was established to deploy our overlay networking and metadata technologies toward de facto standardization. We explain PUCC overlay networking technologies, and their application to home appliances control from a mobile phone, and describe PUCC activities.