Author:
Ichiro Satoh
Affiliation:
National Institute of Informatics, Japan
Keyword(s):
Context-awareness, Ubiquitous computing, Agents.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Ambient Intelligence
;
Context
;
Context-Aware Applications
;
Location Systems and Technology
;
Mobile and Pervasive Computing
;
Paradigm Trends
;
Software Engineering
;
Telecommunications
Abstract:
This paper presents a framework for providing context-aware services in public spaces, e.g., museums. The framework is unique among other existing context-aware systems in implementing services as mobile agents and supporting groups of users in addition to single users. It maintains a location model as containment relationships between digital representations, called virtual counterparts, corresponding to people, terminals, or spaces, according to their locations in the real world. When a visitor moves between exhibits in a museum, it dynamically deploys his/her service provider agents at the computers close to the exhibits via virtual counterparts. When two visitors stand in front of an exhibit, service-provider agents are mutually executed or configured according to the member of the visitors. To demonstrate the utility and effectiveness of the system, we constructed location/user-aware visitor-guide services and experimented with them for two weeks in a public museum.