Interface Concepts for Communicating Green Cyber-Physical
Systems to Public
Ljubo Mercep
1
, Gernot Spiegelberg
2
, Alois Knoll
1
and Jakob Stoeck
1
1
Chair for Robotics and Embedded Systems, Technische Universität München, Boltzmannstraße 3, Garching, Germany
2
Institute for Advanced Study / Siemens AG, Technische Universität München, Lichtenbergstraße 2a,Garching, Germany
Keywords: Cyber-Physical Systems, Sensor Data Flow, Human-Machine Interface, Data Visualization, Web of Things,
Social Awareness, Smart Grid, Electric Mobility
Abstract: Complex interactions of cyber-physical systems, which are necessary to implement high-level functionality,
should stay invisible to the outside world and to the user. However, there are times where an intuitive
presentation of the inner workings of such systems might positively influence the acceptance of new
technologies and sustainable business models. This is especially the case with the so-called green cyber-
physical systems, based upon renewable energies, intelligent energy management and new mobility
paradigms. In this work, an integrated approach to communicating the benefits of such systems was
deployed in our demonstrator, the Innotruck. The vehicle can act as a micro-smart-grid, with the ability to
buy, sell, consume, store and produce electric energy on the internal (partly virtual) or external (real) energy
market. With its recharge stations it also serves as a support truck for other plug-in hybrid or pure electric
vehicles. These use-cases are handled through a series of interconnected presentation concepts, allowing an
insight into the technical systems with varying degrees of complexity. With our work, we have shown how
the benefits of electric mobility, augmented by smart grids, can be communicated to broader public.
1 INTRODUCTION
Information and communication technology might
play a crucial role in spearheading electric mobility.
New system architectures can reduce the complexity
and costs involved with adding new functionality to
vehicles and integrating them into wider cyber-
physical systems (Buckl, 2011).
The business model fitting the customer
expectations will have to generate additional value
through the cross-domain interaction of previously
separated systems. Such is the interaction between
the energy, communication and transport systems,
emerging through the smart-grid and electric
mobility concepts. The power grid of the future is
based on renewable resources and therefore
inherently volatile. This instability can be offseted
through virtual energy buffers in the form of electric
vehicles, which act together on an interconnected
energy market (Negeri, 2012).
One of the goals of the Innotruck project is to
showcase the advantages of such cross-domain
approches from the area of system architecture and
intelligent energy management through intuitive
demonstrators.
This work is organized as follows. In section 2
we give a brief overview of our demonstrator, the
Innotruck. In section 3 we propose several interface
concepts. In section 4 we evaluate the demonstrator
impact on the public and industry. We finally
conclude in section 6.
2 DEMONSTRATOR FEATURES
In this section we shortly describe the main features
of the Innotruck, shown in figure 1. The research
group behind the vehicle, based at the Technische
Universität München, is led by Prof. Dr. Gernot
Spiegelberg. The main lines of research are being
pursued by doctoral candidates Claudia Buitkamp
(drivetrain and energy optimization), Ljubo Mercep
(human-machine interface), and Hauke Stähle
(system architecture).
The Innotruck is a serial plug-in hybrid-electric
drive-by-wire truck. It enables implementing and
testing new concepts in the field of system
architecture, energy management, human-machine
115
Mercep L., Spiegelberg G., Knoll A. and Stoeck J..
Interface Concepts for Communicating Green Cyber-Physical Systems to Public.
DOI: 10.5220/0004367601150118
In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Smart Grids and Green IT Systems (SMARTGREENS-2013), pages 115-118
ISBN: 978-989-8565-55-6
Copyright
c
2013 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)
interfaces and driver assistance, serving as both an
innovation and a presentation platform. The truck is
divided into three segments: presentation area with
five large displays, business lounge with an
additional display and the cockpit equipped with
automotive HMI.
Figure 1: The Innotruck charging two electric vehicles.
With the Innotruck, we are able to present the
underlying technology with various degrees of
complexity. Depending on the previous knowledge
and personal interest, the visitors can understand the
vehicle as a charging station, an interactive
exhibition stand for electric mobility, a drive-by-
wire hybrid truck and an active element of a larger
smart grid. These aspects are shown in figure 2.
Figure 2: Various levels of vehicle perception.
In its current state, the vehicle is capable of drive-
by-wire operation over a sidestick-based input
device (Daily Planet 3 November 2012). The second
component of the automotive user interface is the
integrated touchscreen console. It can be configured
to run in a presentation mode when the vehicle is
stationary, playing out simple driving scenarios.
3 PROPOSED METHODS
Several concepts for data presentation and
interaction have been chosen. They all rely on the
underlying sensor management framework, which
has to satisfy following requirements:
Plug-and-play capable
Based on open standards
Ontologies fitting any sensor system
Easy integration in larger systems
Easy integration with web-based services
Possible extension into internet-of-things
After the analysis of the currently available
approaches (Stoeck, 2012), the Sensor Web
Enablement (SWE) information and service model
from the Open Geospatial Consortium was chosen.
The information model describes the information
being handled as well as the involved interfaces. The
service model does the actual information handling
and represents the actors in the data flow diagram
(OGC, 2012). SWE overview is given in figure 3.
Figure 3: Main components of the SWE architecture.
3.1 Machine-Machine Interfaces
In order to enable in-vehicle communication
between various subsystems as well as the
communication to the outside world, we used the
Sensor Observation Service Server (SOS)
implemented by The 52 North Initiative in Java,
running as a servlet in Apache Tomcat. The higher
bandwidth usage of XML cannot be justified in the
area of machine-machine interfaces, but enable a
unified approach to sensor and observation
description in human-readable format. The Efficient
XML interchange (EXI) format proposed by the
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in 2011 is one
of the solutions to this issue (Kabisch, 2011).
3.2 Human-Machine Interfaces
There are two interface types corresponding to the
two vehicle modes:
Automotive HMI during the drive
Presentation HMI used in stationary mode
We focus on the latter, further divided into three
aspects: drive-by-wire hybrid truck, micro smart grid
and charging station / fleet support, as shown in
figure 4.
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Figure 4: Addressing vehicle aspects with different
technical solutions.
3.2.1 Drive-by-Wire Hybrid Truck Aspect
Main presentation element of this aspect is the
simulation mode on the central driving console, as
shown in figure 5.
Figure 5: Driving simulation mode shown on the central
vehicle console.
3.2.2 Micro Smart Grid Aspect
The energy, data and so-called financial flow is
presented on one of the large displays in the
presentation area, as shown in figure 6.
Gesture control of the media content is realized
with Microsoft Kinect-based solution and
implemented on the displays in the presentation area
Figure 6: HTML-based sensor data visualization.
An ambient lighting control system has been
installed, which can separately regulate ambient
light intensity and colour in every Innotruck
segment.
3.2.3 Charging Station / Fleet Support
Aspect
The application managing the vehicles being
charged at the Innotruck is iPad-native (Mercep,
2012). The iPad can connect ad-hoc to the embedded
controller inside the vehicle or it can do so remotely
over an internet connection. Some views of the user-
side of the applications are in figure 7. Admin panel
has been developed in Nokia/digia QT.
Figure 7: Application for vehicle charging management.
4 PROJECT IMPACT
4.1 Industry Impact
Building up a technology demonstrator of this scope
requires, above all, an intrinsically motivated team.
However, industry support in the form of providing
prototype systems is essential for showcasing cross-
domain approaches. More than thirty partners of all
InterfaceConceptsforCommunicatingGreenCyber-PhysicalSystemstoPublic
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sizes and different business models have been
involved in the development. The resulting
“ecosystem” gives an example of how the initial
research and development costs can be offset
through the benefit of a common presentation
platform.
4.2 Societal Impact
Excluding the press, the visitors can be divided into
non-experts, industry representatives, enthusiasts
and students. On the Hannover Messe 2011 and
2012, briefings were given to guided student groups,
as shown in figure 8.
Figure 8: TecToYou student group being briefed at the
truck.
The non-experts are mostly trying to familiarize
themselves with new technologies through
interactive media content in the presentation area,
with a brief visit to the other vehicle segments.
Industry representatives prefer personal briefings
and presentations in the vehicle’s business lounge.
Enthusiasts and students prefer a more hands-on
approach, trying to use every interaction point inside
the demonstrator.
From the media relations point of view, the
project is a definite success. More than 50 original
articles and TV or video pieces have been found
online or in printed form, excluding portals and
websites which disseminate existing news articles.
6 CONCLUSIONS
We have demonstrated how intuitive interfaces on
top of a data-centric sensor framework can
effectively communicate science and technology
involved in complex cyber-physical systems to
broad public. This, in turn, creates ecosystems of
tightly connected industry and academic partners,
with common research and development interests.
Such focus groups, working on the borders of
different disciplines, bring out the added value
stemming from the cross-domain interaction. With
this vehicle we also present a cycle of knowledge
generation, transfer and application, represented by
the academic partners, translational research and
application-oriented partners.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to thank the International Graduate
School of Science and Engineering (IGSSE), the
Institute of Advanced Study (IAS) and the fortiss
Institute of the Technische Universität München for
all the help and practical support with the project.
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