Framework for Ubiquitous Discovery and Access to Home Services

To relieve the end user of the configuration burden that arises when new devices are installed in the (home) network, service discovery protocols (SDP) have been devised. These enable automatic discovery of the services these devices offer. Yet, the existing SDPs are not compatible or interoperable. In this paper, we propose a framework that automatically translates between the various SDPs. We also solve the problem of current SDPs that only enable discovery within a single local (sub) network. Through a remote access component, we enable sharing of the services between multiple home networks. Hence we realize sharing of services over the boundaries of SDPs and home networks. Results of performance measurements on a proof-of-concept implementation illustrate that the framework operates transparently to the various SDPs: translation has no significant impact on response times compared to native SDP services.