One of the biggest problem of IoT systems is fragmentation, which prevents different IoT systems interacting with each other. Most IoT platforms are vertically oriented closed systems, dedicated to specific application areas. Building systems that require connecting multiple silos, sometimes even owned and operated by different organisations, requires new approaches to also overcome these hurdles. The main goal of SOFIE is to enable diversified applications from various application areas to utilise heterogeneous IoT platforms and autonomous things across technological, organisational, and administrative borders in an open and secure manner, making reuse of existing infrastructure and data easy. The main innovation behind SOFIE is to use interledger technologies to connect the IoT silos by linking multiple DLTs. This allows us to use different types of DLTs to optimise the architecture and achieve sufficient level of trust in a decentralised manner, which in turn will lowers barriers of entry to the markets and fosters the competition.
The SOFIE project produced the following major outcomes: First, a technical solution comprised of:
1) a definition of a secure, open, decentralised and scalable IoT federation architecture,
2) a solution to enable IoT data usage and device actuation across applications and platforms in a secure and controlled way,
3) a solution to enable the simultaneous use of several blockchains and/or other Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs), and
4) an IoT Federation Framework to facilitate the creation of open business platforms.
Second, the solution was validate and disseminated by:
5) deploying and validating the SOFIE federation framework in laboratory environment and in four widely different real-life pilots,
6) evaluating the commercial viability of the SOFIE federation approach in creating business platforms, and
7) establishing the SOFIE IoT federation approach as a major enabler in the IoT industry.
SOFIE has raised its key technical contributions from Technology Readiness Level 2 (“technology concept formulated”) to Technology Readiness Levels 6 (“technology demonstrated in relevant environment) and 7 (“system prototype demonstration in operational environment”).
The SOFIE project has shown that interledger technologies and DLTs are suitable solutions for enabling interoperability and providing decentralised trust. This provides several major benefits for the economy and society including: lower barriers of entry to the markets especially for SMEs and other small players, more competition, and increased transparency. SOFIE Framework has been released as open source (
https://github.com/SOFIE-project/Framework(öffnet in neuem Fenster)) and has already gathered interest from community.
