A general purpose programming framework for ubiquitous computing environments

It is important to note that the need to support ad-hoc and potentially mobile arrangements of devices in ubiquitous environments does not fit well within the traditional client/server architecture. We believe peer-to-peer communication offers a preferable alternative due to its decentralised nature, removing dependence on individual nodes. However, this choice adds to the complexity of the developers task. In this paper, we describe a two-tiered approach to address this problem: A lower tier employing peer-to-peer interactions for managing the network infrastructure and an upper tier providing a mobile agent based programming framework. The result is a general purpose framework for developing ubiquitous applications and services, where the underlying complexity is hidden from the developer. This paper discusses our on-going work; presenting our design decisions, features supported by our framework, and some of the challenges still to be addressed in a complex programming environment

Architecture and Protocols for Service and Application Deployment in Resource Aware Ubiquitous Environments

Realizing the potential of pervasive computing will be predicated upon the availability of a flexible, mobility-aware infrastructure and the technologies to support seamless service management, provisioning and delivery. Despite the advances in routing and media access control technologies, little progress has been made towards large-scale deployment of services and applications in pervasive and ubiquitous environments. The lack of a fixed infrastructure, coupled with the time-varying characteristics of the underlying network topology, make service delivery challenging. The goal of this research is to address the fundamental design issues of a service infrastructure for ubiquitous environments and provide a comprehensive solution which is robust, scalable, secure and takes into consideration node mobility and resource constraints. We discuss the main functionalities of the proposed architecture, describe the algorithms for registration and discovery and present a power-aware location-driven message forwarding algorithm to enable node interaction in this architecture. We also provide security schemes to ensure user privacy in this architecture. The proposed architecture was evaluated through theuse of simulations. The results show that the service architecture is scalable and robust, even when node mobility is high. The comparative analysis shows that our message forwarding algorithm consistently outperforms contemporary location-driven algorithms. Furthermore, thisresearch work was implemented as a proof-of-concept implementation and tested on a real world scenario

Quality assessment technique for ubiquitous software and middleware

The new paradigm of computing or information systems is ubiquitous computing systems. The technology-oriented issues of ubiquitous computing systems have made researchers pay much attention to the feasibility study of the technologies rather than building quality assurance indices or guidelines. In this context, measuring quality is the key to developing high-quality ubiquitous computing products. For this reason, various quality models have been defined, adopted and enhanced over the years, for example, the need for one recognised standard quality model (ISO/IEC 9126) is the result of a consensus for a software quality model on three levels: characteristics, sub-characteristics, and metrics. However, it is very much unlikely that this scheme will be directly applicable to ubiquitous computing environments which are considerably different to conventional software, trailing a big concern which is being given to reformulate existing methods, and especially to elaborate new assessment techniques for ubiquitous computing environments. This paper selects appropriate quality characteristics for the ubiquitous computing environment, which can be used as the quality target for both ubiquitous computing product evaluation processes ad development processes. Further, each of the quality characteristics has been expanded with evaluation questions and metrics, in some cases with measures. In addition, this quality model has been applied to the industrial setting of the ubiquitous computing environment. These have revealed that while the approach was sound, there are some parts to be more developed in the future

Context for Ubiquitous Data Management

In response to the advance of ubiquitous computing technologies, we believe that for computer systems to be ubiquitous, they must be context-aware. In this paper, we address the impact of context-awareness on ubiquitous data management. To do this, we overview different characteristics of context in order to develop a clear understanding of context, as well as its implications and requirements for context-aware data management. References to recent research activities and applicable techniques are also provided

Smart Geographic object: Toward a new understanding of GIS Technology in Ubiquitous Computing

One of the fundamental aspects of ubiquitous computing is the instrumentation of the real world by smart devices. This instrumentation constitutes an opportunity to rethink the interactions between human beings and their environment on the one hand, and between the components of this environment on the other. In this paper we discuss what this understanding of ubiquitous computing can bring to geographic science and particularly to GIS technology. Our main idea is the instrumentation of the geographic environment through the instrumentation of geographic objects composing it. And then investigate how this instrumentation can meet the current limitations of GIS technology, and offers a new stage of rapprochement between the earth and its abstraction. As result, the current research work proposes a new concept we named Smart Geographic Object SGO. The latter is a convergence point between the smart objects and geographic objects, two concepts appertaining respectively to

A Survey on Service Composition Middleware in Pervasive Environments

The development of pervasive computing has put the light on a challenging problem: how to dynamically compose services in heterogeneous and highly changing environments? We propose a survey that defines the service composition as a sequence of four steps: the translation, the generation, the evaluation, and finally the execution. With this powerful and simple model we describe the major service composition middleware. Then, a classification of these service composition middleware according to pervasive requirements - interoperability, discoverability, adaptability, context awareness, QoS management, security, spontaneous management, and autonomous management - is given. The classification highlights what has been done and what remains to do to develop the service composition in pervasive environments

Context Aware Adaptable Applications - A global approach

Actual applications (mostly component based) requirements cannot be expressed without a ubiquitous and mobile part for end-users as well as for M2M applications (Machine to Machine). Such an evolution implies context management in order to evaluate the consequences of the mobility and corresponding mechanisms to adapt or to be adapted to the new environment. Applications are then qualified as context aware applications. This first part of this paper presents an overview of context and its management by application adaptation. This part starts by a definition and proposes a model for the context. It also presents various techniques to adapt applications to the context: from self-adaptation to supervised approached. The second part is an overview of architectures for adaptable applications. It focuses on platforms based solutions and shows information flows between application, platform and context. Finally it makes a synthesis proposition with a platform for adaptable context-aware applications called Kalimucho. Then we present implementations tools for software components and a dataflow models in order to implement the Kalimucho platform

IP-Based Mobility Management and Handover Latency Measurement in heterogeneous environments

One serious concern in the ubiquitous networks is the seamless vertical handover management between different wireless technologies. To meet this challenge, many standardization organizations proposed different protocols at different layers of the protocol stack. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has different groups working on mobility at IP level in order to enhance mobile IPv4 and mobile IPv6 with different variants: HMIPv6 (Hierarchical Mobile IPv6), FMIPv6 (Fast Mobile IPv6) and PMIPv6 (Proxy Mobile IPv6) for seamless handover. Moreover, the IEEE 802.21 standard provides another framework for seamless handover. The 3GPP standard provides the Access Network and Selection Function (ANDSF) to support seamless handover between 3GPP – non 3GPP networks like Wi-Fi, considered as untrusted, and WIMAX considered as trusted networks. In this paper, we present an in-depth analysis of seamless vertical handover protocols and a handover latency comparison of the main mobility management approaches in the literature. The comparison shows the advantages and drawbacks of every mechanism in order to facilitate the adoption of the convenient one for vertical handover within Next Generation Network (NGN) environments. Keywords: Seamless vertical handover, mobility management protocols, IEEE 802.21 MIH, handover latenc