Collaborative Development of Intelligent Wearable Meta-Products in the Cloud

Recent developments in mobile, ubiquitous and cloud computing, as well as in miniature sensors, impose a new understanding of products and production models. A (meta-) product is now a customer driven customisable entity that integrates sensory and computing units, which are in turn connected to the cloud, leading to a paradigm shift from mass production to intelligent, over-the-web configurable products. This evolution triggers an essential change of the whole design and production life cycle and opens totally new perspectives towards person-oriented production models that allow agile, small scale, and distributed production, with a considerable impact on cost-effectiveness and ecology.

The customisable meta-products consist of intelligent wearables (clothing, accessories) equipped with embedded networks of sensors. Sensorial data will be communicated in real-time to the new generation of mobile devices via low-energy wireless communication.

However, product design and production is now becoming highly complex and requires interdisciplinary expertise. The lack of appropriate methodologies and collaborative tools constitutes a barrier in the wider adoption of the new production paradigm.

The goal of EASY is to develop new methodologies, tools and ready-to-use components for designing and producing intelligent wearables as Meta-Products. We propose a cloud computing enabled framework for the Collaborative Design and Development of Personalised Products and Services, combining embedded sensors (Internet of things paradigm) and mobile devices with facilities for joint open development of downloadable applications and services.