Towards Interoperability Mismatch Identification. An Expert System Approach

Lack of interoperability is a growing problem for the industry and the adoption of new technologies. Despite the current efforts in digitization and automatization, challenges regarding the integration and compatibility between heterogeneous devices and systems remain open. In the literature, new solutions can be found. To adopt them, the identification of the differences between service interfaces that hamper communication is critical. Automating the analysis and identification, which is currently based on manual operations, would significantly reduce the engineering effort and associated costs.This paper proposes a novelty approach to autonomously select the most suitable solution to address interoperability problems in the communication between heterogeneous systems. This work introduces the mismatch analysis system, designed as an expert system through the use of production rules, frames and fuzzy logic. The mismatch analysis system calculates the degree of compatibility and uncertainty between service interfaces and decides the best course of action to assist the communication between systems. The system has been successfully designed, implemented, integrated, and tested in the Arrowhead framework, demonstrating high potential.