Abstract
With the increasing pervasiveness of wireless
computing technologies, users will benefit from the automatic
interactions among personal devices and environments. However,
current interaction systems have some limitations in terms of the
problems with a centralized server, assumption of wide area
wireless connectivity, or designated services instead of the
universal ad hoc interaction. In this paper, we proposed a
software framework for heterogeneous Bluetooth enabled devices
and environments to interact with each other, based on minimum
assumptions on the capabilities and infrastructure on devices &
environments. The key elements of framework include Ad Hoc
Sensing & Discovery Code, Mobile Code and Applications. With
the framework built on Java and mobile code, we realize easily
the ad hoc interactions between heterogeneous devices and
environments. To demonstrate our concept, we implemented the
blue_remote which uses a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) to
control a PC (Personal Computer) and alert system which allows
applications in PC to make use of SMS (Short Message Service)
application on PDA.
Keywords—Heterogeneous Ad Hoc Interaction, Framework,
Device, Environment, Mobile Code
I. INTRODUCTION
Pervasive computing is the next generation computing
environments with information & communication technology
everywhere, for everyone, at all times [1]. With the increasing
pervasiveness of wireless technologies, users will benefit from
the interactions among heterogeneous devices and
environments. For example, the elderly/disabled people use
personal devices to control environment, such as opening the
door, controlling the sound volume, and so on. At the same
time, a PC with sensors monitors their conditions and sends
SMS via mobile phone to alert doctors/relatives if they fall
down or other danger happens. Hodes et al. defined Universal
Interaction as allowing a device to adapt its functionality to
exploit services it discovers as it moves into a new
environment [2].
In this paper, we define “Device” as any personal device
owned/used by a user and “Environment” as anything from a
single desktop to a highly enhanced pervasive computing
environment.
Ad-hoc interaction allows a mobile device to discover,
interact and request available local services when it comes into
a new environment, with minimum or without installation in
advance. One possible scenario of the ad hoc interaction is that
George, an elderly person, goes to see a specialist when he
feels pain in his heart (Fig. 1). When George arrives at the
hospital, his PDA interacts with the hospital environment and
shows the map for him to reach the specialist room. After the
specialist makes the necessary medical checks, George is
advised to stay in a hospital room for observation. In the
hospital room, a PC is connected to several sensors for
monitoring patients and it also provides several entertainment
programs for patients. When George stays in bed and is
monitored by sensors in his body, he uses his PDA to select a
music program in the PC and adjust the volume of sound to
make him calm. At the same time, the PC collects and
processes the data from sensors. If the PC detects a distress
signal from George, it sends an alert message to inform
doctor/nurse at once.
The above interaction scenarios are characterized by a
number of challenges: devices interaction can be ad-hoc and
spontaneous; devices and environments are heterogeneous;
and context of user, device and environment is dynamic [3].
Our research contribution is in developing a software
framework that allows heterogeneous devices and
environments to interact with each other, and with minimal
assumptions on the capabilities and infrastructure on devices
& environments.
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