PICO: A platform independent communications middleware for heterogeneous devices in smart grids

This paper presents a data-centric middleware responsible for real-time communication and data storage in smart grids. The middleware offers a high level programming model that provides ways of storing/getting information from/to the grid and encrypts messages thus providing a secure message exchange. The design has taken into account the heterogeneity of devices, software platforms and stakeholders involved in this kind of Cyber-physical System (CPS). A modular vision is followed in such a way that middleware components can be easily adapted to different platforms and a simple data interface is provided by using REST (Representational State Transfer) web services and a high level asynchronous API. The middleware has been used in the context of a European project (e-balance) where soft real-time requirements, security and low capacity devices were some of the requirements. The demonstration scenarios are detailed in this paper together with the validation tests that show that the use of this programming abstraction is feasible.