Multimedia Context Awareness for Smart Mobile Environments

openNowadays the development of the IoT framework and the resulting huge number of smart connected devices opens the door to exploit the presence of multiple smart nodes to accomplish a variety of tasks. Multimedia context awareness, together with the concept of ambient intelligence, is tightly related to the IoT framework, and it can be applied to a large number of smart scenarios. In this thesis, the aim is to study and analyze the role of context awareness in different applications related to smart mobile environments, such as future smart spaces and connected cities. Indeed, this research work focuses on different aspects of ambient intelligence, such as audio-awareness and wireless-awareness. In particular, this thesis tackles two main research topics: the first one, related to the framework of audio-awareness, concerns a multiple observations approach for smart speaker recognition in mobile environments; the second one, tied to the concept of wireless-awareness, regards Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) detection based on WiFi statistical fingerprint analysis.openXXXI CICLO - SC. E TECN. ING. ELETTR. E DELLE TEL. - Ambienti cognitivi interattiviGaribotto, Chiar

Context awareness computing in smart spaces using stochastic analysis of sensor data

In building a smart space, it becomes more critical to develop a recognition system which enables to be aware of contexts, since the appropriate services can be provided under the accurate recognition. As services satisfying for desires of individual human residents are more demanding, the necessity for more sophisticated recognition algorithms is increasing. This paper proposes an approach to discover the current context by stochastically analyzing data obtained from sensors deployed in the smart space. The approach proceeds in two phases, which is to build context models and to find one context model matching the current state space, however we mainly focus on the phase building context models. Experimental validation supports the approach and approved validity

Exploring context-sensitive collaborative augmented reality applications

In smart spaces limited amount of physical resources are available. Also, system should be able to offer relevant information according to user’s personal preferences. At the same time smart environments could serve many users with same requirement of relevancy and operate on limited resources. Sometimes it may not be possible to share resource in a way that respects all users without compromising collaboration. This thesis is focused on solving the problem of shared resource from the perspective of augmented reality. Selected standpoint is on mobile collaborative augmented reality and context-awareness. A small user study has been arranged as part of thesis to bring out information about user’s thoughts and emotions while using a simple prototype application. In addition, a small literature review about main concepts is conducted. There is a short analysis of some collaborative augmented reality applications presented based on recent literature. Results of the thesis show that even with small experiments it is possible to discover new information from users. Results also provide tentative answers to presented research questions. Main findings are that users have high expectations towards context-awareness and augmented reality technologies. They also expect applications to offer relevant, validated and also surprising information in each situation. This thesis has some evidence about suitability of augmented reality in context-aware applications that are targeted to support human-to human collaboration. With augmented reality it is possible to offer individual standpoints for users while they are inspecting limited, shared resources. Endorsement of user’s ability to monitor their environment is one challenge in large smart environments. Finally, software engineer can take user’s expectations into account when designing context-aware systems for smart environments. Also, developer could implement system that takes advantage of different human sensory modalities

Middleware Technologies for Cloud of Things - a survey

The next wave of communication and applications rely on the new services provided by Internet of Things which is becoming an important aspect in human and machines future. The IoT services are a key solution for providing smart environments in homes, buildings and cities. In the era of a massive number of connected things and objects with a high grow rate, several challenges have been raised such as management, aggregation and storage for big produced data. In order to tackle some of these issues, cloud computing emerged to IoT as Cloud of Things (CoT) which provides virtually unlimited cloud services to enhance the large scale IoT platforms. There are several factors to be considered in design and implementation of a CoT platform. One of the most important and challenging problems is the heterogeneity of different objects. This problem can be addressed by deploying suitable "Middleware". Middleware sits between things and applications that make a reliable platform for communication among things with different interfaces, operating systems, and architectures. The main aim of this paper is to study the middleware technologies for CoT. Toward this end, we first present the main features and characteristics of middlewares. Next we study different architecture styles and service domains. Then we presents several middlewares that are suitable for CoT based platforms and lastly a list of current challenges and issues in design of CoT based middlewares is discussed.Comment: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352864817301268, Digital Communications and Networks, Elsevier (2017

Middleware Technologies for Cloud of Things - a survey

The next wave of communication and applications rely on the new services provided by Internet of Things which is becoming an important aspect in human and machines future. The IoT services are a key solution for providing smart environments in homes, buildings and cities. In the era of a massive number of connected things and objects with a high grow rate, several challenges have been raised such as management, aggregation and storage for big produced data. In order to tackle some of these issues, cloud computing emerged to IoT as Cloud of Things (CoT) which provides virtually unlimited cloud services to enhance the large scale IoT platforms. There are several factors to be considered in design and implementation of a CoT platform. One of the most important and challenging problems is the heterogeneity of different objects. This problem can be addressed by deploying suitable "Middleware". Middleware sits between things and applications that make a reliable platform for communication among things with different interfaces, operating systems, and architectures. The main aim of this paper is to study the middleware technologies for CoT. Toward this end, we first present the main features and characteristics of middlewares. Next we study different architecture styles and service domains. Then we presents several middlewares that are suitable for CoT based platforms and lastly a list of current challenges and issues in design of CoT based middlewares is discussed.Comment: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352864817301268, Digital Communications and Networks, Elsevier (2017

Context-awareness for mobile sensing: a survey and future directions

The evolution of smartphones together with increasing computational power have empowered developers to create innovative context-aware applications for recognizing user related social and cognitive activities in any situation and at any location. The existence and awareness of the context provides the capability of being conscious of physical environments or situations around mobile device users. This allows network services to respond proactively and intelligently based on such awareness. The key idea behind context-aware applications is to encourage users to collect, analyze and share local sensory knowledge in the purpose for a large scale community use by creating a smart network. The desired network is capable of making autonomous logical decisions to actuate environmental objects, and also assist individuals. However, many open challenges remain, which are mostly arisen due to the middleware services provided in mobile devices have limited resources in terms of power, memory and bandwidth. Thus, it becomes critically important to study how the drawbacks can be elaborated and resolved, and at the same time better understand the opportunities for the research community to contribute to the context-awareness. To this end, this paper surveys the literature over the period of 1991-2014 from the emerging concepts to applications of context-awareness in mobile platforms by providing up-to-date research and future research directions. Moreover, it points out the challenges faced in this regard and enlighten them by proposing possible solutions

Context Aware Computing for The Internet of Things: A Survey

As we are moving towards the Internet of Things (IoT), the number of sensors deployed around the world is growing at a rapid pace. Market research has shown a significant growth of sensor deployments over the past decade and has predicted a significant increment of the growth rate in the future. These sensors continuously generate enormous amounts of data. However, in order to add value to raw sensor data we need to understand it. Collection, modelling, reasoning, and distribution of context in relation to sensor data plays critical role in this challenge. Context-aware computing has proven to be successful in understanding sensor data. In this paper, we survey context awareness from an IoT perspective. We present the necessary background by introducing the IoT paradigm and context-aware fundamentals at the beginning. Then we provide an in-depth analysis of context life cycle. We evaluate a subset of projects (50) which represent the majority of research and commercial solutions proposed in the field of context-aware computing conducted over the last decade (2001-2011) based on our own taxonomy. Finally, based on our evaluation, we highlight the lessons to be learnt from the past and some possible directions for future research. The survey addresses a broad range of techniques, methods, models, functionalities, systems, applications, and middleware solutions related to context awareness and IoT. Our goal is not only to analyse, compare and consolidate past research work but also to appreciate their findings and discuss their applicability towards the IoT.Comment: IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials Journal, 201