Apparatus for home network middleware interoperability service using home gateway and OSGi platform and method thereof

• US 20050144262A1
• Filed: 07/26/2004
• Published: 06/30/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 12/26/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
• Original Assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
• Inventors: Lee, Jeun Woo, Kang, Kyu Chang, Kang, Dong Oh
• Granted Patent: US 7,392,304 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/220
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2805 Home Audio Video Interoperability [HAVI] networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/281 indicating a format for calling an appliance service function in a home automation network for remote control or remote monitoring of applications H04L67/025
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2814 Exchanging control software or macros for controlling appliance services in a home automation network arrangements for maintenance or administration involving configuration of the network and network elements H04L41/08
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2832 Interconnection of the control functionalities between home networks single bridge functionality H04L12/4625
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/66 Arrangements for connecting between networks having differing types of switching systems, e.g. gateways

Abstract

Provided is an apparatus for a home network middleware interoperability service using a home gateway and an OSGi platform and method thereof, the apparatus comprising: a plurality of home network devices in which various types of middlewares are mounted; a home gateway in which a plurality of middleware bundles for supporting the various types of middlewares and an OSGi platform are mounted, and with which information on the home network devices is transferred to an external network; and a service provider connected to the home gateway via an external network and receiving information on the home network devices and downloading to the home gateway the middleware bundles appropriate to the user'"'"'s home network to provide the middleware interoperability service.

Claims

1. An apparatus for a home network middleware interoperability service using a home gateway and an OSGi platform, comprising:

a plurality of home network devices in which various types of middlewares are mounted;

a home gateway in which a plurality of middleware bundles for supporting the various types of middlewares and an OSGi platform are mounted, and with which information on the home network devices is transferred to an external network; and

a service provider connected to the home gateway via the external network and receiving information on the home network devices and downloading middleware conversion bundles appropriate to the user'"'"'s home network to the home gateway to provide the middleware interoperability service.

2. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the home gateway includes:

a middleware bundle module having the plurality of middleware bundles to collect information on the devices that support the home network middleware and to export the collected information through OSGi service;

an interoperability processing bundle for collecting the information exported from each middleware bundle to provide to the service provider;

a middleware conversion bundle for interacting with each middleware bundle using the OSGi service to perform device level conversion among different middlewares as well as to export a message of each middleware device to different middleware devices; and

an OSGi framework for managing and operating the various types of OSGi bundles to enable OSGi service registration and utilization among the OSGi bundles.

3. The apparatus according to claim 2, wherein each middleware bundle, the interoperability-processing bundle and the middleware conversion bundle are downloaded from the service provider.

4. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the service provider downloads a new middle conversion bundle to the home gateway whenever the user'"'"'s home network environment is changed.

5. A service method of operating an apparatus configured to interoperate among devices mounting various types of middlewares connected to a home network, using a home gateway connected to each device via the home network and connected to a service provider via an external network and an OSGi platform capable of actively downloading and managing the bundle, the method comprising the steps of:

(a) downloading an interoperability-processing bundle from the service provider and requesting information on the device that supports each middleware;

(b) searching the requested information on the device that supports each middleware, and using the OSGi service to provide the result to the service provider;

(c) making a middleware conversion bundle appropriate to the user'"'"'s home network for the middleware interoperability service based on the information on the device received from the service provider to download to the home gateway; and

(d) providing an interoperability service among different middlewares operated in the home gateway through the middleware conversion bundle downloaded from the service provider.

6. The service method according to claim 5, wherein the step (c) further comprises a step of downloading a new middleware conversion bundle by the service provider to the home gateway whenever the user'"'"'s home network environment is changed.