New Technologies for Internet of Things and Augmented Reality Applications for Domotic Environments and Industry 4.0

Resum

In recent years, the technology related to the Internet of Things (IoT), has gained interest in several elds, from home automation to industry. IoT systems allow heterogeneous devices such as household appliances, machinery, or vehicles to communicate with each other through an interconnected network and to exchange data related to the physical environment in which they are located. However, the rapid evolution of the technology requires analyzing the architectures and platforms to support every scenario in which IoT is deployed to ensure that the performance is appropriate. The Industry 4.0 paradigm relies on IoT networks to exchange the vast amount of information generated by sensors and control systems with the goal of optimizing business processes through other technologies like robotics, big data, arti cial intelligence, among others. Speci cally, one of the key technologies for the Industry 4.0 is Augmented Reality (AR) which has demonstrated to be a good ally for displaying information from IoT networks in the context of the digital transformation of the industry. However, the implementation of such systems poses several challenges, especially if quality of experience considerations are taken into account. First, hardware restrictions of the end devices limit the available computing power, and the energy available can also be limited for devices using batteries. Next, the technology heterogeneity in IoT and AR systems makes it di cult to implement interactions between them, as AR frameworks use technologies that di er remarkably from those used for the development of IoT device software. This thesis provides an analysis of the current state-of-the-art technologies regarding AR and IoT systems with special attention to the industrial applications of those technologies under the umbrella of the Industry 4.0 paradigm. Due to its novelty and the lack of proper academic reviews, this thesis starts with an extensive analysis and review of current AR technologies followed by the description of a speci c use case of AR technologies for smart public buildings. Next, several use cases of IoT systems are presented, analyzing the state of the art of each of them. Finally, this thesis tackles the integration of IoT and AR systems, proposing several architectures and frameworks to make it possible, and several use cases for speci c industrial applications are presented making use of such an integration of IoT and AR. Throughout this thesis several commercial and academic solutions are evaluated, and some novel architectures and frameworks are proposed to improve the performance of these systems and provide an adequate user experience. Moreover, a hands-on approach was taken in every section of this thesis by designing, implementing, and testing several demonstrative applications that provide a real-world experimental setup for testing the proposed systems.