EPC based internet of things architecture

The Internet of Things is a concept of connecting small real space physical objects to the Internet using sensor network, RFID, and other forms of wireless network technologies. In this paper, we present an EPC (Electronic Product Code) based Internet of Things (IoT) architecture. The key concept of the architecture is EPC network over heterogeneous access network. We particularly focused on a ZigBee network as it can collect the latest information about 'Things'. The EPC Network provides certain static information about 'Things' such as name and manufacturer. To support end-to-end communication between sensor nodes and applications, Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) instead of Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) over ZigBee is developed. A gateway on a local area network converts HTTP and CoAP. A pseudo Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) protocol supports JOIN/LEAVE management of sensor nodes. We also prove a prototype home appliances management system that adopt our architecture over a ZigBee network. Our prototype provides energy-saving application using home appliances information collected through the system.