Faculty of Informatics / Mathematics

two forklifts transport boxes

Project ID-Ideal - Work package Industry 4.0

Secure Digital Identities - in the Context of Industry 4.0 Applications

The ID-Ideal roject aims to make the use of digital identities in business and administration more secure and easier. On average, modern people have around 70 digital identities. The management of these identities, as well as the sovereignty and security of one's own data linked to these identities, is impossible for most people according to the state of the art. ID-Ideal therefore wants to replace these many IDs with a single secure digital ID and create a basis for existing and future digital identity services and broadly effective everyday applications. The basis is the so-called ID-Ideal Trust Framework, which regulates the technical, semantic and legal interoperability of services and applications.

When talking about secure digital identities in our highly technological world, one cannot avoid considering the interface between people and machines. In the context of Industrie4.0, a work package of the ID-Ideal project, therefore, deals with the integration and application of the ID-Ideal Trust Framework and the Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) concept to cyber-physical systems. This is done on the basis of two industrial scenarios accompanied by the company Jungheinrich PLC, which serves as a reference for the rental use of industrial trucks in industrial environments.

 

Use cases in the industry

In the first use case, industrial trucks (forklifts) are made available at various locations. Access to the forklifts should be simple and practical via a digital ID. All the user's certificates, such as driving authorization or age, must be provided. In special use cases, restrictions such as preventing personalized data from being forwarded to the intermediary must be considered. Also, the user receives all information about the identified rental object. In addition to static data such as type or intended use, this also includes dynamic data such as operating hours or the certificate of proper maintenance. An IoT field device with direct integration into the ID management system is required to determine the static and dynamic parameters of the asset and serves as a reference for a variety of other use cases thanks to the seamless integration. Payment is via a pay-per-use model based on hours of use, where the user identifies themselves to an intermediary or the manufacturer.

The second use case is about short- and medium-term rental use of complementary goods. The customers (mainly companies, but also private end customers) identify themselves to the rental park and receive the appropriate machines based on their specific requirements and prerequisites. Since in this scenario not only products of one manufacturer are offered, an identification and selection of products of different manufacturers are required. A trustworthy and independent ID management system based on the ID-Ideal Trust Framework is used for this purpose. In the application scenarios of Jungheinrich AG, more than 180,000 digital identifications per year can be assumed based on the planned rentals.

The research objectives for Industry 4.0 are:

1. Generic integration concept for universal connection of digital ID solutions to cyber-physical assets.

2. Secure identification via standardized protocols between industrial machines

3. Mapping of system-specific identification features in standardized information models

4. Automated ID management via verifiable credentials of cyber-physical assets

Sponsored by:

Funding program

Showcase  "Secure digital Identities"

Project partner

project duration

May 2021 - April 2024