Software Engineering Issues for Ubiquitous ComputingAuthor: Gregory D. Abowd, Georgia Institute of Technology

CSCI 599 Week 4 Paper 3

September 18 2001

Presenters:

Ajit Sonawane

Douglas Yu-Cheng Su

Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp)

“ invisible, everywhere computing that does not live in a personal device of any sort, but is the woodwork everywhere.”

--Mark Weiser

- A recent computing paradigm that shift from the traditional desktop service into environment on different devices.

From ‘one to many’ to ‘many to one’

Reference: Alan Daniel, Georgia Institute of Technology.http://www.cc.gatech.edu/classes/cs6751_97_fall/projects/gacha/daniels_essay.html

Two Example Ubicomp Research Projects

CyBARguide

Classroom 2000

Research Project - CyBARguide

Replicate a human tour guide service through the use of mobile and handheld technology, and ubiquitous positioning and communication services. Users driving around Atlanta can find out the location of establishments that satisfy certain requirements(special offers, free parking, good ambience) Positioning Information: GPS for outdoor and Beacon systems for indoor.

Research Project – Classroom 2000

During the lecture, whiteboard activity is captured by using a Java applet, ZenPad. The lecture annotation, audio, video are automatically capture and recorded in real-time.

Research Project – Classroom 2000 (cont.)

After a lecture, the system weaves the captured events together into a set of standard HTML Web pages. The interface includes a timeline that provides an index to the video, slides, and visited Web pages. Students can click on the teacher's annotations to replay the audio and video at the time the ink was written.

3 key features of Ubiquitous Computing

Transparent Interaction Automated Capture Context-awareness

Feature 1: Transparent Interaction

Ubicomp Vision: “pervasive computation without intrusion.”

Remove the physical interface as a barrier between a user and the work he/she wishes to accomplish via the computer.

Area of research includes: handwriting and gesture recognition, freeform pen interaction, speech, computational perception, tangible user interface, etc. Classroom 2000 did not have an automated transparent entry to the system. (require human support to initiate a session)

Feature 2: Automated Capture

Capture everyday experiences and make the records available for later use.

An automated tool that support capture, integration and access of different types of multimedia information. When reusing, it help simply multimedia authoring.

Feature 3: Context-awareness

What is Context?

- information about the environment associated with an application.

What is Context-aware Computing?

– Application development that allows for the collection of context and dynamic program behavior dictated by the knowledge of the environment.

In cyBARguide:

- Location is the Context

Ubicomp Software Engineering Issues and Challenge

Software structuring issue Toolkit design issue Component integration

Issue 1: Software Structuring Issues

Challenges in modifying existing system made up of complex collection of existing parts

Failure of CyBARguide- Not able to separate issues of context gathering and interpretation from the triggering of application behavior, - User evaluation indicated the need for major modifications and these modifications were not easy to do quickly

Solutions and Challenges

Structuring the CyBARguide Application

Generic Context Server

Application

Issues for the context server - context is dynamic - hide details from application

Mobile User

Issue 2: Toolkit Design Issues

Standard toolkits that solve common problems are advantageous to the speed and maintainability of development of Ubicomp.

A location-aware application API is desirable to the development of Cyberguide (Each version of prototype has its own positioning-system specific code).

Suggested a context-aware computing exists with a TILE (time, identity, location, entities) interface.

Standard clustering technique for creating freeform, pen-based interfaces.

Toolkit Design Issue (cont.)

Challenge:

The biggest challenge for toolkit design is the scalable interface problem for a variety of physical devices. May result in having an application programmer to rewrite the API for different device.

Suggested Solutions: Automated transformation of the interaction tree representing the

user interface. Abstract interface toolkits that can be bound to appropriate

physical interfaces for different device.

Issue 3: Component Integration Issue

Upicomp presents a rather arduous requirement of robustness, reliability and availability. Developing all portions of a ubicomp application from scratch will be difficult and there is no need to reinvent the wheel. The developer should rely on third party software.

Challenge:

Gluing together pieces of a system, or component integration.

Suggested Solution:

Follow standard method for communication and control that can be realized across the wide array of devices and OS. (TCP, HTTP, XML)

Relevance to Embedded Software

Embedded Software behaviors

Classroom 2000 CyBARguide

LivenessComponents of Classroom 2000 must be robust during/after the lecture.

CyBARguide should not crash when users are searching campus information.

ReactivityZanPad (the electronic white) board should be able to react to instructor's writing and capture the lecture.

Should try to adapt to user's context whereever he/she moves.

ConcurrencyCapturing, timestamping, and allowing writing on the electronic whiteboard concurrently during the lecture.

Track the user as well as process the user request.

TimelinessClassroom Material should be capture in real-time.

Real-time positioning and information delivery to PDA.

Relevance to Embedded Software (cont.)

With embedded software we can provide the three key features for Ubiquitous Computing Application Transparent Interfaces Context Awareness Automated Capture

In general, using embedded software we can realize Ubiquitous Computing Applications!

Summary

3 key features for Ubiquitous Computing - Transparent Interface - Context Awareness - Automated Capture Software Engineering Issues - Toolkit design - Software Structuring - Component Integration

Ubiquitous computing a paradigm for tomorrow! - $5 bluetooth chips ready by 2003 (Cambridge Silicon

Radio)

Thank you. Questions? Or comments?