News

European Commission IST Project FABRIC - New protocol for the home entertainment market (29/6/2004)

Enabling PCs, DVD players, PDAs, etc. to communicate with one another in the home network environment is a software architecture developed by key players from the EU consumer electronics market under the IST project FABRIC.

The problem is that consumer electronic devices for the home market can't, at present, interconnect. The different standards don't allow for interoperability. A PDA (personal digital assistant or palmtop computer) operating with one set of standards can't talk to a DVD player that uses another set of standards. This makes it difficult to sell the idea of a home network, and one of the aims of the project was develop a software architecture and middleware to make interoperability possible.

"We haven't developed any hardware. We have taken existing standards for middleware and communications, and integrated them," says Peter van der Stok of Philips Research, and FABRIC coordinator. "We have been working with a number of IEEE standards: 1394, Firewire; 802.11, WiFi wireless LAN, and 802.3, Ethernet. At the middleware level, that part of the architecture that provides the 'glue' between the operating system and user application, FABRIC has looked closely at UP&P (Universal Plug & Play), IEEE 1516 High Level Architecture and HAVi (Home Audio Video interoperability)."

The architecture makes use of the IEEE 1516 Publish and Subscribe protocol. Electronic devices, such as TVs and DVD players, each announce to the network that they have certain functionalities, and how these may be controlled. "The PDA would listen for these messages and build up a database of which devices are available, what they do and how they're controlled. Using this technology would make it possible to use a PDA for programming the video recorder whilst taking a bath," says van der Stok.

"We expect that the FABRIC architecture will start to be taken up by manufactures in the next year or so," says van der Stok. "Look out for FARIC-enabled electronic devices in the next two to three years."

www.extra.research.philips.com/euprojects/fabric
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