Home Appliance Virtualization Software Configuration for Home Network Services

Recently, there have been extensive studies on home networks, mainly undertaken by the home appliance industry. Service programs and device control programs of current home network systems are dependent on vendors and devices. In this study, we virtualize each home network device so that it can be considered to contain a number of logical devices, and propose a new software configuration based on this virtualization concept. Programs are written using logical interfaces, which define what types of information are exchanged. The proposed software configuration makes programs independent of vendors or physical devices. We have developed a prototype home network system and home network service programs, and confirmed the effectiveness of the new software configuration.