CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This is a U.S. National Phase Application under 35 USC 371 of International Application PCT/JP2018/002916 (not published in English), filed Jan. 30, 2018, which claims priority to Japanese Patent Application No. 2017-090147, filed on Apr. 28, 2017. The entire disclosures of the above applications are incorporated herein by reference.

FIELD

The present invention relates to an ID space conversion system and a method for the ID space conversion system.

BACKGROUND

Recently, the IoT (Internet of Things) in which various devices are connected to a network to utilize data, has been garnering attention. In a system intended for IoT, a variety of different devices which have been utilized as conventional OT (Operational Technology) are connected or disconnected as necessary. The system thus requires a function for time-serially controlling IDs, so that various devices and components for the devices can be uniquely identified, without overlaps.

In the OT, sensors and actuators that output data can be uniquely identified in devices in which they are installed through use of some type of ID. Hereinafter, this ID is designated as a physical ID.

On the other hand, when an application uses data accumulated in a database in an IoT system, outliers can be detected and future predictions performed from statistical information by time-serially acquiring and analyzing values of sensors of the same type crossing different devices. If, in the case when an application accesses data in the sensors/actuators crossing devices, a unique ID exists for each such sensors/actuators of the same type, this allows for effective data acquisition and effective data analyses. Hereinafter, the ID unique to sensors/actuators of the same type is designated as a system ID.

The physical ID and the system ID are defined in independent ID spaces in which the scope of uniqueness, ID-setting person, and setting rules respectively differ; however, data that can be acquired by an application through the use of a system ID needs to be consistently associated with sensors/actuators having a physical ID corresponding to the system ID. That is, the physical ID and the system ID need to maintain a one-to-one relationship. Otherwise, data acquired by using a certain system ID will mean, in some cases, data acquired from a different sensor/actuator, thus rendering it impossible to use for an analysis through the application. A correspondence relationship between a physical ID and a system ID is shown inFIG. 10.

As shown in the same figure, for example, in a physical ID space1, devices D1to D3exist. The device D1has a physical ID for a sensor A001, a sensor B001, an actuator A001, an actuator A002, an actuator B001, and an actuator B002. It is assumed that the device D2has a physical ID for a sensor A01 and the sensor B001, and the device D3has a physical ID for an actuator a002, an actuator b001, and a sensor a001.

The physical ID of the device D1in the physical ID space1is unique in the device D1. The physical IDs of the devices D2and D3in the other devices D2and D3are also uniquely defined in the devices D2and D3respectively.

In a system ID space2, the sensor A001 in the device D1has a system ID of “SA002” in a sensor A class in the system ID space2, and the sensor B001 in the device D1has a system ID of “SB001” in a sensor B class in the system ID space2. The uniqueness of the system ID in the system ID space2is component classes of the devices D1to D3(e.g., sensor A class, sensor B class, etc.).

Also, it is considered that when an application uses data in sensors/actuators, the application performs an advanced analysis by using the association between sensors, between actuators, or between a sensor and an actuator without using respective independent data. To this end, the system needs to manage the associations of these components as a configuration of the device and make them available from the application. However, the configuration is not uniform even among the same types of devices. Several variations can be present for each individual device in response to the environment in which a device is installed or a customization request from a user, and the device configuration thus needs to be managed for each device to be connected to a system.

CITATION LIST

Non Patent Literature

Non Patent Literature 1: Information Processing Society of Japan Journal Vol. 56 No. 1, pp. 273-283 (January 2015), Shogo Nakahara, Kinko Sueda, Yoshikatsu Tada, “Proposal and Evaluation of Integration Accessing Technique to devices in M2M”

Non Patent Literature 2: Information Processing Society of Japan, Research Report, Kenta Ueda, Takahiro Kosaka, and Kenya Sato, “Proposal of Integrated Device linkage Method using REST Architecture”, Nov. 28, 2008, pp. 51-57

SUMMARY

More data can be utilized by connecting to an IoT system not only exclusive devices each having a function for connection to the IoT system, but also existing devices having no such connection function, via a gateway, etc. For the latter, there may be a case where it is more rational to set the device configuration manually rather than add a function for automatically acquiring a device configuration from the device. The device configuration that has been manually set is registered in a system and subsequently acquired from an application. In this case, however, there is a risk that a configuration which does not conform to the design of the device would be registered due to a recognition error or a lack of knowledge on the part of the operator who set the configuration, and an application might not acquire a correct device configuration.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned actual situation, and an object of the present invention is to provide an ID space conversion system in which an application can use a system ID to access a correct data resource.

According to a first invention of the present invention, an ID space conversion system is provided which consistently provides setting information to both a gateway and a data processing unit, to which a plurality of devices, each including components, are connected via the gateway and a network; to which a plurality of applications are also connected; and which mediates data between the plurality of devices and the plurality of applications, the system including: an ID space conversion function unit that generates a non-overlapping unique system ID for each component type on the basis of a physical ID of the component included in the device; and a sharing function unit that creates gateway-setting information, including a correspondence relationship between the physical ID of the component included in the device and the system ID generated by the ID space conversion function unit, and shares the gateway-setting information with the gateway. The data processing unit then determines whether data of the device component sent from the device via the gateway includes the generated system ID, and the gateway adds, based on the created gateway-setting information, to the data of the component obtained from the device, the generated system ID corresponding to the physical ID of the component included in the device and outputs system ID-added data to the network.

According to the first invention of the present invention, a non-overlapping unique system ID is generated for each type of component via the ID space conversion function unit. Then, the data processing unit determines whether data of a component of the device sent via a gateway includes a generated system ID, and it is thus possible to recognize that data not including the system ID is incorrect data.

According to a second invention of the present invention, the first invention is an ID space conversion unit which further includes a device configuration verification function unit that determines whether specific device configuration information, including component information on the device given to the ID space conversion system and relation information for tracing the component information is information corresponding to a correct device which conforms to device design definition information defined for each of the plurality of devices, and consisting of component definition information indicating each component and relation information for tracing the component definition information, wherein the ID space conversion function unit is configured to generate the system ID for the device determined as the correct device by the device configuration verification function unit.

According to the second invention, it is possible to generate a system ID for a device determined to be a correct device by the device configuration verification function unit, and for a correct device in which specific device configuration information conforms to device design definition information.

According to a third invention of the present invention, in the second invention, the sharing function unit shares, between the sharing function unit and the gateway, specific device configuration information for the device determined to be the correct device.

According to the third invention of the present application, the sharing unit shares specific device configuration information for a device determined to be a correct device with the sharing function unit and the gateway, and thus the gateway and the application can refer to the specific device configuration information.

According to a fourth invention of the present invention, in the first invention, the ID space conversion function unit generates a new system ID that does not overlap existing system IDs when a new device is connected to the ID space conversion system, and when a combination of an ID of the new device and a physical ID of the new device has not been registered.

According to the fourth invention of the present invention, the ID space conversion function unit generates a new system ID that does not overlap existing system IDs when a new device is connected to the ID space conversion system, and when a combination between an ID for the new device and a physical ID has not been registered, meaning that a system ID does not overlap with devices of the same type.

According to a fifth invention of the present application, in the first invention, the ID space conversion function unit further uses the generated system ID when a new device is connected to the ID space conversion system, and when a combination between an ID for the new device and a physical ID is already registered.

According to the fifth invention of the present invention, the ID space conversion function unit further uses the generated system ID when a new device is connected to the ID space conversion system, and when a combination between an ID for the new device and a physical ID has been registered, thus rendering it possible to effectively use the system ID. Also, when a device which is once connected and then disconnected is connected once more, the same system ID is assigned to the device, rendering it possible to use data accumulated when connected the first time by using the same system ID.

According to a sixth invention of the present invention, in the first invention, the data processing unit discards the data of the component of the device sent from the device via the gateway when the data of the component of the device does not include the generated system ID.

According to the sixth invention of the present application, data obtained from an incorrect device is discarded, thus rendering it possible to prevent incorrect data from being mediated to an application.

According to a seventh invention of the present invention, in the second invention, the device configuration verification function unit reports that the device connected to the ID space conversion system, or setting thereof, is not correct when the component information or relation information of the specific device configuration information on the device is determined to be incorrect by the device configuration verification function unit.

According to the seventh invention of the present invention, when the component information or relation information of the specific device configuration information is not correct, it is possible to report that the device or setting thereof is not correct.

According to the present invention, it is possible to provide an ID space conversion system in which an application can use a system ID to access a correct data resource.

