Supporting Mobility using Context-Based Reasoning

Abstract

Recent research in mobile computing has given rise to a new class of ubiquitous applications that are deployed in dynamic networks where communication is not reliable. In this paper, we describe how context-based reasoning can be used to overcome this limitation of (ad hoc) wireless communication. We present a small set of abstractions that facilitate the development of mobile ubiquitous applications centred on the definition of contexts of interest. Mobile intelligent agents, called sentient objects, extract, interpret and use context information to drive their behaviour. Communication between sentient objects is supported by an event-based middleware that provides feedback when communication cannot be maintained, allowing sentient objects to dynamically adapt their behaviour. We show how our approach has been successfully applied to an application from the transportation domain.