A middleware infrastructure for active spaces

Mobile Computing and Communications Review, 2002

We envision a future where people's living spaces are interactive and programmable. Users interact with their offices, homes, cars, malls and airports to request information, benefit from the resources available, and configure the habitat's behavior. Data and tasks are always accessible and are mapped dynamically to convenient resources present in the current location. Users may extend the habitat with personal devices that seamlessly integrate with the environment. Such user-oriented interactive environments may require a novel software infrastructure to operate their resources, sense context properties, and assist in the development and execution of applications. In this article, we present an experimental middleware infrastructure called Gaia that we have used to prototype the resource management of and provide the user-oriented interfaces for such physical spaces populated with network-enabled computing resources.

Workshop on Application …, 2001

In this paper, we present an overview of our research project with Gaia, a development infrastructure for ubiquitous applications. This infrastructure is based on three main elements: a component-based middleware operating system that provides a generic computational environment for ubiquitous computing, an application model that defines a standard mechanism to build ubiquitous applications, and a scripting language that we use to assemble componentbased applications and to coordinate activities in ubiquitous computing scenarios.

2002

We envision a future where people's living spaces are interactive and programmable. Users interact with their offices, homes, cars, malls and airports to request information, benefit from the resources available, and configure the habitat's behavior. Data and tasks are always accessible and are mapped dynamically to convenient resources present in the current location. Users may extend the habitat with personal devices that seamlessly integrate with the environment. Such user-oriented interactive environments may require a novel software infrastructure to operate their resources, sense context properties, and assist in the development and execution of applications. In this article, we present an experimental middleware infrastructure called Gaia that we have used to prototype the resource management of and provide the useroriented interfaces for such physical spaces populated with network-enabled computing resources. To limit the scope of our research, we focus on physical spaces used for teaching; classrooms, offices, and lecture rooms. The system described in this paper is derived from a series of experiments starting in 1996. We show how, by applying the concepts of a conventional operating system to middleware, we can manage the resources, devices and distributed objects in a room, building, or physical space, how a distributed extension of the model-view-controller that is use in personal computers simplifies and structures practical applications for these environments, and how, by driving context-sensitivity into its data storage mechanisms, the system can help satisfy the requirements for user-centricity and mobility.

System Support for …, 2004

Ubiquitous computing enables an environment that assimilates digital and physical devices seamlessly and presents a unified programming interface to the user. Users can program the environment similar to programming a computer. With the widespread availability of personal devices and personal area networks, there is a growing need for personal devices to share resources and services among themselves to support complex applications. Middleware support is required for enabling interactions among services and for sharing resources. We introduce Mobile Gaia, a middleware framework to enable the construction of personal ubiquitous computing environments, or personal spaces, which are formed ad hoc using personal devices carried or worn by a person as well as devices that are physically nearby. We discuss the architecture and services of Mobile Gaia and some of the challenges that need to be addressed in this endeavor.

International Conference on Distributed Systems Platforms and Open Distributed Processing/Open Distributed Processing, 2003

Ubiquitous computing challenges the conventional notion of a user logged into a personal computing device, whether it is a desktop, a laptop, or a digital assistant. When the physical environment of a user contains hundreds of networked computer devices each of which may be used to support one or more user applications, the notion of personal computing becomes inadequate. Further, when a group of users share such a physical environment, new forms of sharing, cooperation and collaboration are possible and mobile users may constantly change the computers with which they interact; we refer to these digitally augmented physical spaces as Active Spaces. We present in this paper an application framework that provides mechanisms to construct, run or adapt existing applications to ubiquitous computing environments. The framework binds applications to users, uses multiple devices simultaneously, and exploits resource management within the users’ environment that reacts to context and mobility. Our research contributes to application mobility, partitioning and adaptation within device rich environments, and uses context-awareness to focus the resources of ubiquitous computing environments on the needs of users.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2005

Ubiquitous systems are characterized by multi-fold complexity, stemming mainly from the vast number of possible interactions between many heterogeneous objects and services. Devices ranging from simple everyday objects populated with sensing, actuating and communication capabilities to complex computer systems, mobile or not, are treated as reusable "components" of a dynamically changing physical/digital environment. As even an individual object with limited functionality, may present advanced behavior when grouped with others, our aim is to look at how collections of such distributed objects can collaborate and provide functionality that exceeds the sum of their parts. This paper presents GAS-OS, a middleware that supports building, configuring and reconfiguring ubiquitous computing applications using distributed objects.

International Journal of Space- …, 2011

Ubiquitous Computing advocates the construction of large mobile and distributed systems that help enhance physical spaces and aid users in performing various kinds of tasks. These systems, however, are incredibly complex. Developers face a number of challenges in developing ubiquitous computing applications and services. These systems are highly dynamic and fault-prone. Different systems have different resources and policies; hence, programs are not portable across different ubiquitous computing environments. Finally, the device and service richness of these environments cause further complexity in terms of choosing appropriate resources and algorithms for performing a task. In this paper, we first identify key aspects of the complexity of ubiquitous computing systems. We then propose a middleware that helps tackle these aspects of complexity and simplify the development of ubiquitous computing systems. This middleware enables ubiquitous computing systems to become self-configuring, self-repairing and adaptive. Developers program ubiquitous computing systems in terms of high-level, parameterized tasks. The values of task parameters may be provided by the end-user or automatically inferred by the middleware based on the current state of the environment, context-sensitive policies, and learned user preferences. We finally evaluate the reduction in complexity enabled by the middleware.

… Computing.[Online]. …, 2001

In an age where wirelessly networked appliances and devices are becoming commonplace, there is a necessity for providing a standard interface to them that is easily accessible by any mobile user. The design outlined in this paper provides an infrastructure and communication protocol for presenting services to heterogeneous mobile clients in a physical space via some short range wireless links. This system uses a Communication Manager to communicate with the client devices. The Communication Manager can be modified easily to work with any type of communication medium, including TCP/IP, Infrared, CDPD and Bluetooth. All the components in our model use a language based on Extensible Markup Language (XML) giving it a uniform and easily adaptable interface. We explain our trade-offs in implementation and through experiments we show that the design is feasible and that it indeed provides a flexible structure for providing services. Centaurus defines a uniform infrastructure for heterogeneous services, both hardware and software , to be made available to diverse mobile users within a confined space.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2008

Ubiquitous computing is increasingly becoming part of our lives. Various computing devices, having different sizes and capabilities, and using different software platforms are part of our working, leisure and living scenario, where mobile devices coexist and communicate with desktop and laptop computers. Because of this phenomenon, the need for reliable and efficient mechanisms to connect applications running on different platforms is increasing. In this paper we present a middleware which easies the process of development applications running in different platforms in a peer-to-peer computing environment. The papers also present the results of benchmarking tests and the experience of developing different applications with this platform.