GECAF: a framework for developing context-aware pervasive systems

Context-aware systems differ in the way they interact with users, the way they interpret the context of their entities and the actions they take. Each system (or system type) is developed in its own way with no common architecture currently available. This fact makes the development of every context aware system a challenge. To address this issue, a generic and extensible framework is needed so that it can be used for developing various systems. This paper proposes a generic framework that uses the Pipe-and-Filter software architectural style, which is a well-known style, allowing developers to create new systems by arranging existing components into various arrangements to meet the system’s requirements. The paper also analyses the state of the art architectures to study their functionality and architectural organisation. The analysis was then used as a basis for comparing and evaluating the proposed framework