An Integrated IoT Enabled On-Demand Grocery Shopping and Delivery Cloud System Using MTComm at the Edge
Soumya Sunny, Xiaoqing Liu, Md Rakib Shahriar · 2019
In this paper, we present a novel approach to design and develop an integrated IoT enabled on-demand grocery shopping and delivery cloud (IGSDC) system using Machine Tool Communication (MTComm) method at the edge. MTComm was developed to provide remote monitoring and operation services of manufacturing machines over the Internet. Here we designed an MTComm based edge computing hub (MEH) that connects to heterogeneous physical resources using their own languages and protocols and exchanges information with cloud applications through RESTful services and XML messages. Based on IoT data acquired through MEHs, the IGSDC system tracks grocery product inventories, notifies consumers when they are running low on grocery products, and offers available purchase options from different suppliers. On the other hand, suppliers connect their warehouse robots using MEHs to the cloud by publishing their monitoring and operation capabilities and perform product delivery remotely using autonomous mobile robots. Using MEHs, users can monitor, manage, and operate their resources both locally and remotely. This paper describes different components and processes of the four-layered service-oriented IGSDC system. It also discusses how MTComm is utilized for edge computing in both environments to improve scalability and efficiency. A fully functional prototype system with several IoT devices and robots was implemented. Experiments demonstrated excellent feasibility and effectiveness of MTComm based edge computing to integrate heterogeneous in-home IoT devices with in-warehouse robots through cloud applications and provide enhanced on-demand grocery shopping and delivery services.