Exploiting an IoT local middleware for the orchestration of mobile device sensors to detect outdoor and indoor user positioning

Thanks to the proliferation of mobile technologies that enable devices to use the network for providing (publish) or requiring (subscribe) information according to specific applications aims, the Internet of Things (IoT) can be considered as the biggest challenge that the industry is currently facing. During the last years several application domains for IoT have emerged and among these the Smart Cities. In effect, the IoT is redrawing the Smart Cities in a promising way from the technological, economic, and social perspectives. This represents the background of the work described in the present paper that deals with an Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) mobile system able to detect outdoor and indoor user positioning, acquiring data through sensors in an unobtrusive way. Our system exploits an IoT middleware, called WoX (Web of Topics) and its local counterpart L-WoX (Local-Web of Topics). Thanks to its model-driven approach, it is able to allow the communication between mobile applications and a set of heterogeneous sensors, orchestrating access services and communication protocols in a very abstract way.