88 research outputs found
A personal distributed environment for future mobile systems
A Personal Distributed Environment (PDE) embraces a user-centric view of communications that take place against a backdrop of multiple user devices, each with its distinct capabilities, in physically separate locations. This paper provides an overview of a Personal Distributed Environment and some of the research issues related to the implementation of the PDE concept that are being considered in the current Mobile VCE work programme
Transparent resource sharing framework for internet services on handheld devices
Handheld devices have limited processing power and a short battery lifetime. As a result, computationally intensive applications cannot run appropriately or cause the device to run out of battery too early. Additionally, Internet-based service providers targeting these mobile devices lack information to estimate the remaining battery autonomy and have no view on the availability of idle resources in the neighborhood of the handheld device. These battery-related issues create an opportunity for Internet providers to broaden their role and start managing energy aspects of battery-driven mobile devices inside the home. In this paper, we propose an energy-aware resource-sharing framework that enables Internet access providers to delegate (a part of) a client application from a handheld device to idle resources in the LAN, in a transparent way for the end-user. The key component is the resource sharing service, hosted on the LAN gateway, which can be remotely queried and managed by the Internet access provider. The service includes a battery model to predict the remaining battery lifetime. We describe the concept of resource-sharing-as-a-service that allows users of handheld devices to subscribe to the resource sharing service. In a proof-of-concept, we evaluate the delay to offload a client application to an idle computer and study the impact on battery autonomy as a function of the CPU cycles that can be offloaded
Efficient service discovery in wide area networks
Living in an increasingly networked world, with an abundant number
of services available to consumers, the consumer electronics market
is enjoying a boom. The average consumer in the developed world may
own several networked devices such as games consoles, mobile phones,
PDAs, laptops and desktops, wireless picture frames and printers to
name but a few. With this growing number of networked devices comes
a growing demand for services, defined here as functions requested
by a client and provided by a networked node. For example, a client
may wish to download and share music or pictures, find and use
printer services, or lookup information (e.g. train times, cinema
bookings).
It is notable that a significant proportion of networked devices are
now mobile. Mobile devices introduce a new dynamic to the service
discovery problem, such as lower battery and processing power and
more expensive bandwidth. Device owners expect to access services
not only in their immediate proximity, but further afield (e.g. in
their homes and offices). Solving these problems is the focus of
this research.
This Thesis offers two alternative approaches to service discovery
in Wide Area Networks (WANs). Firstly, a unique combination of the
Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and the OSGi middleware technology
is presented to provide both mobility and service discovery
capability in WANs. Through experimentation, this technique is shown
to be successful where the number of operating domains is small, but
it does not scale well.
To address the issue of scalability, this Thesis proposes the use of
Peer-to-Peer (P2P) service overlays as a medium for service
discovery in WANs. To confirm that P2P overlays can in fact support
service discovery, a technique to utilise the Distributed Hash Table
(DHT) functionality of distributed systems is used to store and
retrieve service advertisements. Through simulation, this is shown
to be both a scalable and a flexible service discovery technique.
However, the problems associated with P2P networks with respect to
efficiency are well documented.
In a novel approach to reduce messaging costs in P2P networks,
multi-destination multicast is used. Two well known P2P overlays are
extended using the Explicit Multi-Unicast (XCAST) protocol. The
resulting analysis of this extension provides a strong argument for
multiple P2P maintenance algorithms co-existing in a single P2P
overlay to provide adaptable performance. A novel multi-tier P2P
overlay system is presented, which is tailored for service rich
mobile devices and which provides an efficient platform for service
discovery
On the Design of a SIP-Based Binding Middleware for Next Generation Home Network Services
Abstract. This paper proposes a two-layer component-based middleware frame-work that copes with the complexity of managing and constructing efficient and useful SIP-based home services. In the first layer, the device integration frame-work overcomes the heterogeneity of media home devices by providing protocol-independent components that reify the underlying devices. At the second layer, the binding framework allows constructing open mobile media bindings between SIP and non SIP communication protocol endpoints including media home de-vices. The openness of our framework is motivated by the need of constructing highly flexible home services such as context aware adaptation, session mobility, media session enrichment and QoS. Our framework is implemented as part of a context-aware adaptive middleware on top of the OSGi platform and an illustra-tive use case is shown.
Remote service usage through SIP with multimedia access as a use case
The IP Multimedia Subsystem is under deployment, as an IP-based service control and access infrastructure, but how it interconnects with residential appliances is currently unclear. With IMS access for the residential appliances they can be used as both service consumers and service providers. In this paper we present a protocol which allows residential services to be remotely invoked, through the IMS, and consumed in a different network, along with a prototype implementation and early results. With our protocol services of two distinct service protocol systems can cooperate
A Home E-Health System for Dependent People Based on OSGI
This chapter presents a e-health system for dependent people installed in a
home environment. After reviewing the state of art in e-health applications and
technologies several limitations have been detected because many solutions
are proprietary and lack interoperability. The developed home e-health system
provides an architecture capable to integrate different telecare services in a
smart home gateway hardware independent from the application layer. We
propose a rule system to define users’ behavior and monitor relevant events.
Two example systems have been implemented to monitor patients. A data
model for the e-health platform is described as well.Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TSI2006-13390-C02-0
Transparent resource sharing framework for Internet services on handheld devices
Abstract Handheld devices have limited processing power and a short battery lifetime. As a result, computational intensive applications can not run appropriately or cause the device to run out-of-battery too early. Additionally, Internet-based service providers targeting these mobile devices lack information to estimate the remaining battery autonomy and have no view on the availability of idle resources in the neighborhood of the handheld device. In this paper, we propose a transparent resource sharing framework that enables service providers to delegate (a part of) a client application from a handheld device to idle resources in the LAN the device is connected to. The key component is the Resource Sharing service, hosted on the LAN gateway, which can be queried by Internet-based service providers. The service includes a battery model to predict the remaining battery lifetime. We describe the concept of Resource-Sharingas-a-Service that allows users of handheld devices to subscribe to the Resource Sharing service. In a proof-of-concept, we evaluate the delay to offload a client application to an idle computer and study the impact on battery autonomy as a function of the CPU cycles that can be offloaded
Towards Personalised Home Care Systems
Home care is increasingly seen as a promising alternative to traditional care services. Programming home care systems remains a significant challenge considering the potentially large scale of deployment, the differences between individual care needs, and the progressive nature of ageing. In this paper, we present ongoing work on programming home care systems to support personalisation, adaptability over time, and dependability. A policy-based approach is used to build such systems. We present the technical details of our approach, including a policy language for home care and the corresponding system architecture. Policy examples are used to illustrate how the approach supports personalisation of home care services
An Online Environmental Approach to Service Interaction Management in Home Automation
Home automation is maturing with the increased deployment of networks and
intelligent devices in the home. Along with new protocols and devices, new
software services will emerge and work together releasing the full potential of
networked consumer devices. Services may include home security, climate control
or entertainment. With such extensive interworking the phenomenon known as
service interaction, or feature interaction, appears. The problem occurs when
services interfere with one another causing unexpected or undesirable outcomes.
The main goal of this work is to detect undesired interactions between devices
and services while allowing positive interactions between services and devices.
If the interaction is negative, the approach should be able to handle it in an
appropriate way.
Being able to carry out interaction detection in the home poses certain challenges.
Firstly, the devices and services are provided by a number of vendors and will
be using a variety of protocols. Secondly, the configuration will not be fixed,
the network will change as devices join and leave. Services may also change and
adapt to user needs and to devices available at runtime. The developed approach
is able to work with such challenges.
Since the goal of the automated home is to make life simpler for the occupant,
the approach should require minimal user intervention.
With the above goals, an approach was developed which tackles the problem.
Whereas previous approaches solving service interaction have focused on the
service, the technique presented here concentrates on the devices and their surrounds,
as some interactions occur through conflicting effects on the environment.
The approach introduces the concept of environmental variables. A variable may
be room temperature, movement or perhaps light. Drawing inspiration from
the Operating Systems domain, locks are used to control access to the devices
and environmental variables. Using this technique, undesirable interactions are
avoided. The inclusion of the environment is a key element of this approach as
many interactions can happen indirectly, through the environment.
Since the configuration of a home’s devices and services is continually changing,
developing an off-line solution is not practical. Therefore, an on-line approach in
the form of an interaction manager has been developed. It is the manager’s role
to detect interactions.
The approach was shown to work successfuly. The manager was able to successfully
detect interactions and prevent negative interactions from occurring.
Interactions were detected at both device and service level. The approach is flexible:
it is protocol independent, services are unaware of the manager, and the
manager can cope with new devices and services joining the network. Further,
there is little user intervention required for the approach to operate
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