Personal Smart Spaces as a Basis for Identifying Users in Pervasive Systems

The notion of a Personal Smart Space (PSS) offers a new and flexible solution to the problem of implementing pervasive systems. Its attractiveness lies not only in the way in which it bridges the gap between conventional fixed smart spaces and mobile ubiquitous systems, but also in the new functionality it can provide to enhance the user experience. The use of PSSs to realize pervasive systems is currently being investigated in the Persist project, which has developed a pervasive system platform through which these ideas are being explored. This paper considers one of the features of PSSs, namely that of identifying users through the interaction of their respective PSSs, and the problems that arise when dealing with multiple Personal Smart Spaces. Some scenarios are presented to illustrate how this might be utilized in novel services. The problems surrounding implementation are discussed and a solution based on the Persist architecture is presented.