Interface Concepts for Communicating Green Cyber-Physical

Systems to Public

Ljubo Mercep

, Gernot Spiegelberg

, Alois Knoll

and Jakob Stoeck

Chair for Robotics and Embedded Systems, Technische Universität München, Boltzmannstraße 3, Garching, Germany

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

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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

 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

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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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