A digital object memory (DOMe) is a

digital Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Businesses *Digital bank, a form of financial institution *Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) or Digital, a computer company *Digital Research (DR or DRI), a software ...

storage space intended to keep permanently all related information about a concrete physical object instance that is collected during the lifespan of this object and thus forms a basic building block for the

Internet of Things Internet of things (IoT) describes devices with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other communication networks. The IoT encompasse ...

(IoT) by connecting digital information with physical objects. Such memories require each object instance to be uniquely identified and this ID to be attached to the physical object. The underlying techniques to create identification codes and to attach them to objects are manifold but

machine-readable In communications and computing, a machine-readable medium (or computer-readable medium) is a medium capable of storing data in a format easily readable by a digital computer or a sensor. It contrasts with ''human-readable'' medium and data. T ...

techniques are mandatory. Commonly used are

barcode A barcode or bar code is a method of representing data in a visual, Machine-readable data, machine-readable form. Initially, barcodes represented data by varying the widths, spacings and sizes of parallel lines. These barcodes, now commonly ref ...

s with one or two dimensions (e.g. QRcode or

DataMatrix A Data Matrix is a two-dimensional code consisting of black and white "cells" or dots arranged in either a square (geometry), square or rectangle, rectangular pattern, also known as a matrix (mathematics), matrix. The information to be encoded c ...

) and radio based tags like

RFID Radio-frequency identification (RFID) uses electromagnetic fields to automatically identify and track tags attached to objects. An RFID system consists of a tiny radio transponder called a tag, a radio receiver, and a transmitter. When tri ...

or NFC. Such codes or tags are a low cost solution but demand an underlying server infrastructure to host the memory data. DOMe Ontology

Active digital object memories

In contrast to the mentioned memories providing only a passive storage space, the more sophisticated active digital object memories (ADOMe) are based on

embedded systems An embedded system is a specialized computer system—a combination of a computer processor, computer memory, and input/output peripheral devices—that has a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electronic system. It is em ...

in terms of cyber-physical systems (CPS) and provide on the hardware side * a

microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor (computing), processor for which the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit (IC), or a small number of ICs. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, a ...

, * memory, *

microsensor A sensor is often defined as a device that receives and responds to a signal or stimulus. The stimulus is the quantity, property, or condition that is sensed and converted into electrical signal. In the broadest definition, a sensor is a devi ...

systems, * positioning chips, * radio modules for web connectivity, * possibly

actuator An actuator is a machine element, component of a machine that produces force, torque, or Displacement (geometry), displacement, when an electrical, Pneumatics, pneumatic or Hydraulic fluid, hydraulic input is supplied to it in a system (called an ...

s, * its own energy supply or

energy-harvesting Energy harvesting (EH) – also known as power harvesting, energy scavenging, or ambient power – is the process by which energy is derived from external sources (e.g., solar power, thermal energy, wind energy, salinity gradients, and kinetic e ...

unit and on the software side there are *

memory management Memory management (also dynamic memory management, dynamic storage allocation, or dynamic memory allocation) is a form of Resource management (computing), resource management applied to computer memory. The essential requirement of memory manag ...

functions, * sensor interpretation components, * and possibly sensor fusion software modules, * state transformation and processing logic components, * communication interfaces, * user interfaces, * and security modules. Such active memories allow for "on-object" processing of object-related tasks, such as condition monitoring, compilation of associated data, and memory clean-up. In addition to strictly passive memories (storage space is located in the web as mentioned above) and active memories (with "on-object" storage) hybrid forms are also available, that perform simple tasks "on-product", outsource more complex tasks to server-based infrastructures, and keep both representations in sync.

Digital product memory

Digital product memories (DPM) are a subclass of digital object memories, which include memories for all artifacts that were intentionally created such as containers and pieces of art or valuable and rare natural objects such as a marble plate or a lump of gold. Such objects don't have all the attributes of industrial products, but nevertheless a digital black box attached to them for

lifelogging A lifelog is a personal record of one's daily life in a varying amount of detail, for a variety of purposes. The record contains a comprehensive dataset of a human's activities. The data could be used to increase knowledge about how people liv ...

can make sense for specific applications.

Semantic product memory

Semantic product memories (SemProM) go beyond that, since they provide a machine-understandable meaning description of their contents based on semantic web technologies. If a product memory has no explicit semantic markup, only propriety software can exploit the information stored in the memory. In contrast, semantic product memories can be interpreted by any software that has access to the semantic description of the epistemological primitives and the ontologies used for capturing memory contents.

Object memory model

In the context of the Object Memory Modeling Incubator Group, part of the

W3C The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. Founded in 1994 by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations that maintain full-time staff working together in ...

Incubator Activity, an object memory format, which allows for modeling of events or other information about individual physical artifacts (ideally over their lifetime) and thus implements an object memory model (OMM), was created. The model consists of a block-based approach to partition the entire memory to groups each with associated object-related information. Each block consists of the data itself (the so-called

payload Payload is the object or the entity that is being carried by an aircraft or launch vehicle. Sometimes payload also refers to the carrying capacity of an aircraft or launch vehicle, usually measured in terms of weight. Depending on the nature of t ...

) and a set of

metadata Metadata (or metainformation) is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data itself, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including: * Descriptive ...

attributes to describe the block content.

Related research projects

SemProM

Funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research, the project SemProM (Semantic Product Memory) employs

smart label A smart label, also called a smart tag, is an extremely flat configured RFID, transponder under a conventional print-coded label, which includes integrated circuit, chip, antenna (radio), antenna and bonding wires as a so-called inlay. The labels, ...

s in order to give products a digital memory and thus support intelligent applications along the product's lifecycle. By the use of integrated

sensor A sensor is often defined as a device that receives and responds to a signal or stimulus. The stimulus is the quantity, property, or condition that is sensed and converted into electrical signal. In the broadest definition, a sensor is a devi ...

s, relations in the production process become transparent and

supply chain A supply chain is a complex logistics system that consists of facilities that convert raw materials into finished products and distribute them to end consumers or end customers, while supply chain management deals with the flow of goods in distri ...

s as well as environmental influences retraceable. The producer gets supported and the consumer better informed about the product.

RES-COM

Funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research, the project RES-COM (Resource Conservation by Context-Activated Machine-to-Machine Communication) focuses on the development of technologies (containing interfaces, protocols and data models) for proactive resource conservation based on M2M-communication. With a defined interaction with active digital object memories the project tries to leverage the integration of distributed and active components to existing centralized structures in the field of industry and manufacturing.

Aletheia

The Aletheia project is a leading innovation project, sponsored by the German Ministry of Education and Research that aims at obtaining comprehensive access to product information through the use of

semantic Semantics is the study of linguistic Meaning (philosophy), meaning. It examines what meaning is, how words get their meaning, and how the meaning of a complex expression depends on its parts. Part of this process involves the distinction betwee ...

technologies. The project follows an approach which does not only consult structured data from company-owned information sources, such as product databases, to respond to inquiries, it also looks at

unstructured data Unstructured data (or unstructured information) is information that either does not have a pre-defined data model or is not organized in a pre-defined manner. Unstructured information is typically plain text, text-heavy, but may contain data such ...

from office documents and

web 2.0 Web 2.0 (also known as participative (or participatory) web and social web) refers to websites that emphasize user-generated content, ease of use, participatory culture, and interoperability (i.e., compatibility with other products, systems, a ...

sources, such as

wiki A wiki ( ) is a form of hypertext publication on the internet which is collaboratively edited and managed by its audience directly through a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages that can either be edited by the public or l ...

blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

s, and internet forums, as well as sensor and

data.

ADiWa

The ADiWa project (Alliance Digital Product Flow), funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research, makes the huge potential of information from the Internet of Things accessible for business-relevant

workflow Workflow is a generic term for orchestrated and repeatable patterns of activity, enabled by the systematic organization of resources into processes that transform materials, provide services, or process information. It can be depicted as a seque ...

s that can be strategically planned and manipulated. For the data-level connection of objects from the real world, results from available solutions and from the SemProM project shall be used. ADiWa focuses on

business process A business process, business method, or business function is a collection of related, structured activities or tasks performed by people or equipment in which a specific sequence produces a service or product (that serves a particular business g ...

es, which can be controlled and manipulated based on evaluated information from the real world.

SmartProducts

The SmartProducts project, funded by the European Union in the 7th Research Framework Programme (FP7), develops the scientific and technological basis for building "smart products" with embedded proactive knowledge. Smart products help customers, designers and workers to deal with the ever-increasing complexity and variety of modern products. Such smart products leverage proactive knowledge to communicate and co-operate with humans, other products and the environment. The project thereby also focuses on small devices with limited storage capabilities and thus also requires efficient storage mechanisms. Moreover, the project aims to apply the results achieved by the incubator group for optimizing the data exchange between different smart products.

ToTEM

Tales of Things and electronic Memory (TOTeM) is a three-year collaborative project between five universities in the United Kingdom. A project aim is to explore the implications of Internet of Things technologies for the design of novel forms of augmented memory systems. While the potential implications of the Internet of Things for supply chain management and energy consumption have been acknowledged and discussed, its application for the engagement with personal and social memories has been rarely mentioned. More and more newly manufactured objects are often tagged at production and made traceable. Tales of Things provides a design space for exploring the value of a user-generated Internet of Old Things in which people's memories are linked to objects.

SmaProN

The project Smart Product Networks (SmaProN), funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research, explores the dynamic linking of smart products to product bundles and product hierarchies, based on the developed Tip'n'Tell architecture (to integrate distributed product information) and the product description model SPDO (using semantic web-based representation languages).

RAN

The project RFID-Based Automotive Network (RAN), founded by the German Ministry of Education and Research, focuses on the development of a RFID-based hybrid control architecture and valuation methods for value added chains. Using the example of automobile industry they develop a combined data management that exchanges product-related information in a decentralized way using RFID-tags. In addition order-related information are stored in centralized manufacturer databases. Such an architecture allows for transport of product-related data at the location of the physical object and process related data in real-time via backend systems.

References

{{reflist Internet of things Semantic Web Research and development in Germany