Middleware Support For Context Handling and Integration in Ubiquitous COMPUTING

Ubiquitous computing (UC) encompasses sensor-instrumented environments, which are often endowed with wireless network interfaces, in which devices, software agents, and services are integrated in a seamless and transparent way and cooperate to meet high-level goals of human users. This chapter introduces some background concepts on UC. It presents the state-of-the-art for the field of middleware for UC. The requirement of the integration of UC middleware is addressed and an existent solution is described - the Open Context Platform Integration (OpenCOPI) platform. OpenCOPI provides an automatic service composition, a standardized context and communication model, and a fault tolerance mechanism that handles service failures. Another important feature of OpenCOPI is the use of semantic workflows. Finally, the chapter presents a new integration platform for UC. It talks about OpenCOPI as an example of a software system developed to integrate different context provision middleware, with the goal of facilitating the development of context-aware ubiquitous applications.