CAWAR - Formalizing a Framework for Ubiquitous Computing Applications

The concept of Ubiquitous Computing, also called Ubicomp for brevity, describes a new paradigm on the usage of computer based systems. As opposed to most "conventional" computer based systems, Ubicomp applications are characterized by an enhanced usability, thus enabling users to benefit from computer usage and support in as many situations as possible. The computer as an apparent tool steps into the background, while the actual needs and wishes of the current user step into the foreground. \\ \\ The notion of context awareness - and related terms such as context adaptation or adaptation for short - constitute enabling technologies for realizing computer systems according to the Ubicomp paradigm. Since usability issues are at the heart of Ubicomp applications, the adaptive systems try to gather information of their environment in order to automatically infer the wishes and needs of a user. Assumptions concerning these needs are in turn used to trigger system reactions on behalf of the user. This adaptation mechanism can be seen as an additional system feature, which raises the complexity of the overall system. Since the adaptation essentially relies on assumptions concerning the user and its environment, we suggest a special methodological and technical treatment of these aspects within the development process. \\ \\ In this work, we mainly focus on the technical aspects of the topic and introduce a framework for realizing Ubicomp applications. The framework relies on a so called adaptation model, which describes the adaptive system behavior of the application. The adaptation model, or K-Model for short, explicitly expresses the assumptions concerning the user and the system environment. We investigate the intuitions before providing formal definitions of adaptation and related concepts, which serve as the formal foundations for the Cawar framework.     «

The concept of Ubiquitous Computing, also called Ubicomp for brevity, describes a new paradigm on the usage of computer based systems. As opposed to most "conventional" computer based systems, Ubicomp applications are characterized by an enhanced usability, thus enabling users to benefit from computer usage and support in as many situations as possible. The computer as an apparent tool steps into the background, while the actual needs and wishes of the current user step into the foreground. \\ \...     »