Business ViewpointUsage ViewpointData/Functional ViewpointImplementation ViewpointProduct ViewpointProduct ArchitectureAIoT Implementation Viewpoint

The Implementation Viewpoint must provide sufficient detail to have meaningful technical discussions between the different technical stakeholders of the product team. However, most design artifacts in this viewpoint will still be on a level of abstraction which will hide many of the different details required by the implementation teams. Nevertheless, it is important to find a common language and understanding between the different stakeholders, including a realistic mapping to the Data / Functional Viewpoint.

The AIoT Implementation Viewpoint should at least include an End-to-End Architecture, details on the planned integration with the physical asset (either following a line-fit or retrofit approach), as well as high-level hardware, software and AI architectures.

End-to-End Architecture

The End-to-End Architecture should include the integration of physical assets, as well as the integration of existing enterprise applications in the back end. In between, an AIoT system will usually have edge and cloud or on-premises back end components. These should also be described with some level of detail, including technical platforms, middleware, AI and Digital Twin components, and finally the business logic itself.

IoT Architecture

Asset Integration

The Asset Integration perspective should provide an overview of the physical parts of the product, including sensors, antennas, battery/power supply, HMI, and onboard computers. The focus is on how these different elements are integrated with the asset itself. For example, where exactly on the asset would the antenna be located, where to position key elements such as main board, battery, sensors, etc. Finally, an important question will concern wiring for power supply, as well as access to local bus systems.

Asset Integration

Hardware Architecture

Depending on the requirements of the AIoT system, custom hardware development can be an important success factor. The complexity of custom hardware design and development should not be underestimated. From the hardware design point of view, a key artefact is usually the schematic design of the required PCBs (Printed Circuit Boards).

Robovac hardware architecture

The ACME:Vac example shown here includes the main control unit, HMI, power management, sensors, wireless connectivity, signal conditioning, and finally the control of the different motors.

Software Architecture

The technical software architecture should have a logical layering, showing key software components and their main dependencies. For the ACME:Vac example, the software architecture would include two main perspectives: the software architecture on the robovac (shown here) and the backend architecture (not shown here).

Example: Robovac SW architecture

Depending on the type of organization, software architecture will be ad hoc or follow standards such as the OpenGroup`s [[1]] framework. TOGAF, for example, provides the concept of Architecture and Solution Building Blocks (ABB and SBB, respectively), which can be useful in more complex AIoT projects.

The example shown here is generic (like an ABB in TOGAF terms). Not shown here is a mapping of the software architecture to concrete products and standards (like a TOGAF SBB), which would usually be the case in any project. However, the AIoT Playbook does not want to favor any particular vendor and is consequently leaving this exercise to the reader.

AI Pipeline Architecture

The AI Pipeline Architecture should explain, on a technical level, how data preparation, model training and deployment of AI models are supported. For each of these phases, it must be understood which AI-specific frameworks are being used, which additional middleware, which DBMS or other data storage technology, and which hardware and OS.

Finally, the AI Pipeline Architecture must show how the deployment of trained models to cloud and edge nodes is supported. For distributed edge nodes in particular, the support for OTA (over-the-air) updates should be explained. Furthermore, in the case of AI on distributed edge nodes, the architecture must explain how model monitoring data are captured and consolidated back in the cloud.

AI Architecture

Putting it all together

The Data/Functional Viewpoint has introduced the concept of functional decompositioning, including the documentation of the distributed component architecture. The Implementation Viewpoint has added different technical perspectives. The different functional components must be mapped to technology-specific pipelines. For this, feature teams must be defined that combine the required technical skills/access to the required technical pipelines for a specific feature (see the AIoT Product Viewpoint for a more detailed discussion on feature teams and how they are assigned).

Architectural Decomposition and System Integration

The results from the different technical pipelines are individual technical components that must be integrated via different types of interfaces. For example, smartphone, cloud and edge components can be integrated via REST interfaces. On the edge, embedded components are often integrated via C interfaces. The integration between embedded software and hardware is done via different types of Hardware/Software Interfaces (HSI). Finally, any AIoT hardware components must be physically integrated with the actual physical product. During the development/testing phase, this will usually be a manual process, while later it will be either a standardized retrofit or line-fit process.

All of this will be required to integrate the different components required for a specific feature across the different technical pipelines. Multiple features will be integrated to form the entire system (or system-of-systems, depending on the complexity or our product or solution).

Authors and Contributors

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DIRK SLAMA
(Editor-in-Chief)

AUTHOR
Dirk Slama is VP and Chief Alliance Officer at Bosch Software Innovations (SI). Bosch SI is spearheading the Internet of Things (IoT) activities of Bosch, the global manufacturing and services group. Dirk has over 20 years experience in very large-scale distributed application projects and system integration, including SOA, BPM, M2M and most recently IoT. He is representing Bosch at the Industrial Internet Consortium and is active in the Industry 4.0 community. He holds an MBA from IMD Lausanne as well as a Diploma Degree in Computer Science from TU Berlin.


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MICHAEL HOHMANN, BSH HAUSGERÄTE GMBH
CONTRIBUTOR
Dr. Michael Hohmann works as a Systems Engineer in the field of autonomous cleaning robots at BSH. After studies in Mechanical Engineering and Measurement Science at TU Ilmenau he joined the Bosch Roxxter development team at BSH robotics department.