Document Type

Technical Report

Publication Date

2003-03-17

Filename

wucse-2003-13.pdf

Technical Report Number

WUCSE-2003-13

Abstract

Context-aware computing is characterized by the ability of a software system to continuously adapt its behavior to a changing environment over which it has little or no control. Previous work along these lines presumed a rather narrow definition of context that centered on resources immediately available to the component in question, e.g., communication bandwidth, physical location, etc. This paper explores context-aware computing in the setting of ad hoc networks consisting of numerous mobile hosts interacting with each other opportunistically via transient wireless interconnections. We extend a component’s context to encompass awareness of a neighborhood within the ad hoc network. A formal abstract characterization of this new perspective is proposed. The result is a specification method and associated context maintenance protocol. The former enables an application to define an individualized context that extends across multiple mobile hosts in the ad hoc network. The latter delegates the continuous evaluation of the context and the performance of operations on it to some middleware operating below the application level. This relieves application development of the obligation of explicitly managing mobility and its implications on the component’s behavior. While a basic approach to the specification and protocol involves constructing a tree structure on top of the dynamically changing network, a more robust approach involves a mesh construction; we explore both approaches. We also present an initial implementation of the protocol.

Comments

PLEASE SEE WUCSE-2004-37

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