An Investigation into a Universal Context Model to Support Context-A ware Applications

摘要

If a mobile device is to offer rich context-aware behaviour it must have a good knowledge of the world around us. This paper explores the concept of universal context model, able to represent any form of context information and therefore be an enabler to the full spectrum of context-aware applications. It explores how such a model may accurately represent - as far as practically possible - the multitude of different objects we encounter in our surrounding environment and their many states and interrelationships. Three key propositions are that the context model should be of an object-oriented nature, that location is most appropriately and flexibly represented as a relationship between two objects rather than being considered as a special type of object unto itself, and finally, that objects may be coupled with observer-dependent validity rules that determine if the object is visible within the model.