Industry Sector Applications

Major growth is predicted for solutions "in the cloud." The floodgate-opening success of app stores promises to further accelerate the opportunities for cloud solutions in the years ahead. In contrast to the range of applications available for business users to date, new business user apps will require more than single applications: users require consistent support of their core business processes, which in turn requires the bundling of configurable and scalable business IT products in service packages.

The goal of CLOUDwerker is to create a trustworthy open service platform. This platform should allow bundled services to be made available in software as a service (SaaS) models which satisfy the basic mobile and organizational needs of SMEs as well as supporting b2b partnerships and b2c relationships. Services including CRM and ERP for example, should become available from different service suppliers: more flexible and adaptable than is the case with existing apps stores and smoothly combinable with value-added services.

The skilled crafts and trades sector represents the primary target group for the CLOUDwerker platform. IT support for smaller skilled crafts and trades businesses remains fairly limited. This has meant that optimization potential - long since used in other sectors - has not been taken advantage of in this sector.

With approximately 975 thousand operations in Germany, almost five million workers (of which 65 percent are active in operations with less than 20 workers) and accounting for nine percent of German GDP, the sector represents a highly relevant and attractive market for future SaaS offers.

An increasing number of private households are becoming producers of renewable energy. As a significant technical and financial outlay is required in order to store and/or transport such decentrally generated energy over greater distances, it is beneficial from an economic perspective to utilize this energy both locally and promptly. However, this requires the ability to be able to deal with local excess production at short notice using, for example, an electronic trading platform.

The objective of "PeerEnergyCloud" is to research and develop cloud-based technologies for such a platform. This includes the establishment of a virtual marketplace for local power trading as well as the design and development of innovative recording and forecast methods within a so-called "micro grid."

The integration of local sensors and actuators at the end-user locations - via a specially secured fiber optic cable - enables the "smart micro grid cloud services" to access usage data in real-time which can be used for the purpose of generating forecasts. Additional energy-related services (e.g. energy auditing, object protection/building monitoring, etc.) can be offered via third-party providers where the consumer allows selected data to be used for other purposes. A specific case, which relates to a micro grid in the city of Saarlouis consisting of approximately 500 housing units and numerous photovoltaic facilities, is currently being reviewed within the scope of the project.

Trust im Fokus - the local peer-2-peer energy trading platform is based on highly differentiated and individual load profiles which provide a number of significant advantages: the urban network structures can be used optimally and energy feed-ins to cross-regional networks can be avoided; thereby relieving the load on these networks.

An energy marketplace and basic services are also to be developed within the scope of this project, and new incentive models will ensure all participating partners will be able to benefit from the added value that is created. Particular attention is being paid to the protection of personal data as well as security in relation to data entry, transmission and storage. The problem of "trustability" of the service providers in the cloud will be handled using new procedures for data distribution, access right rules and partial encryption of the data.

Sensors and actuators are essential key and cross-sectoral technologies for a number of industry sectors. They are already indispensible in many parts of daily life. They will also play a significant role in the intelligent environment, power network, health system, transportation and mobility infrastructures of the future as well as the Internet of Things. Technological progress in this field promises great economic and social opportunities.

The SensorCloud vision lies in the creation of a centralized and highly scalable platform for globally networked sensors: from the recording of sensor data to multidimensional analysis and use of this data to the control of actuators and intelligent infrastructures. Just as email brings people from across the world together today, the SensorCloud will connect sensors/actuators and applications across the world.

SensorCloud provides open interfaces (APIs). Sensors and actuators on these APIs make their data and functionality available. Independent application developers can use the interfaces to connect their own innovative applications using the cloud sensor data. The SensorCloud’s highly accessible and secure core architecture also provides the basis for linking sensors, actuators and applications in a global way - creating an eco-system of independent components which make completely new value chains possible.