Embedded Systems Integration Using Web Services

Embedded applications, which were origionally built on standalone devices, nowadays require a growing integration with other systems through their interconnection with TCP/IP networks. Web Services, which provide a serviceoriented distributed architecture for the interconnection of systems through TCP/IP networks, have been widely adopted for the integration of business applications, but this sort of integration is still not provided by embedded applications. The present work aims to demonstrate the feasibility of using Web Services for the integration of embedded applications running on heterogeneous architectures. This is achieved through the provision of a support for the development and deployment of web services on embedded platforms. The feasibility of this approach is demonstrated by developing an application deployed on an embedded platform - the SHIP board - which is then integrated with a distributed enterprise application.