# Service Interface Translation. An Interoperability Approach
## 1 Introduction  
The emergence of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Industry 4.0, represents a major paradigm shift for manufacturing industry scenarios. Industry 4.0 focuses on the digitization and integration of all physical processes across the entire organization [1]. Decentralized manufacturing, far from the previous centrally controlled automation, enables smart factories to effectively handle growing complexities and increase production efficiency. The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and cyber-physical systems (CPSs) are attempts to make Industry 4.0 scalable, robust, flexible, and secure. The IIoT covers all aspects of networked intelligent manufacturing systems, including a wide range of application domains and user requirements. Nevertheless, to fully obtain the potential of these technologies, interoperability between heterogeneous systems is an essential requirement. The diversity of available robots, IIoT devices and systems leads to great levels of heterogeneity and makes integration difficult. In addition, each solution provides its own IoT infrastructure, devices, APIs, and data formats, leading to interoperability issues. Interoperability can be understood as the seamless connection and communication of heterogeneous systems and software components. The lack of interoperability between platforms, systems, and applications is a serious problem that prevents the adoption and deployment of Industry 4.0. and translates into significant engineering costs. Reducing the engineering time dedicated to the integration and connection of heterogeneous systems is thus a key task to increase productivity and efficiency. This task is even more important in regard to the integration of legacy systems and the collaboration between vertical domains. Interoperability problems are particularly relevant for systems of systems (SoS). A SoS can be defined as a collection of independent systems and their interrelationships gathered together to obtain an emergent behavior greater than the sum of its individual parts [2]. Technology diversity in SoS is an indicator of innovation and added value. The associated fragmentation, in contrast, represents an obstacle for the IoT and SoS technologies to be adopted and has a negative impact on the market's solidity. The evolution of globally connected markets indicates the need to reduce the level of isolation of different silos, increase the amount of shared information, and adopt SoS solutions that can seamlessly work together. [PERSON] et al. [3] estimated that 40% of the potential benefits of IoT and SoS solutions can be obtained with interoperability between systems, highlighting interoperability as a key SoS technology enabler. As the lack of interoperability increases, a generic solution to the problem is increasingly demanded. The interoperability issues that industry faces have multiple causes. This paper approaches the problem from a service interface perspective. The presented solution relies on the assumption that the heterogeneity in the interfaces acts as a barrier during the integration of heterogeneous systems and legacy technologies; thus, service interfaces enable communication between systems. The aim of this study was to find a solution for the service interface translation between heterogeneous systems. Automatic service interface translation across protocols, information models, and standards needs to be addressed to fulfill industry demands, such as flexible reconfigurations of production systems and optimizations across different models, standards, and legacy systems. From the above, it can be observed that addressing service interface interoperability via interface translation will potentially benefit industries. The major contributions of this article are as follows:  
1. A novel approach to address service interface heterogeneity, which is one of the causes of interoperability issues in industrial scenarios. 2.