Transparent Protocol for Interoperability in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks are important for a variety of today's applications and a high impact in the domains of Internet of Things (IoT), smart grids, smart dust and industrial wireless networks can be expected for the coming years. Even if constantly new created protocols try to achieve common standards, the interoperability remains still a big problem. In this work we propose a new approach, in which we abstract existing protocols in a unified application programming interface (API) realizing a transparent protocol. The proposed API provides the same functions for different platforms and can be easily implemented to operate with several communication solutions. For proof-of-concept, the transparent protocol is developed, implemented and tested using two heterogeneous transceivers and communication protocols, which are ZigBee and Xbee. Both solutions are accessed using the same program. The data of heterogeneous endpoints is extracted, stored in a common database and visualized in a shared front-end.