Context-Aware Systems for Mobile and Ubiquitous Networks

Context awareness is the capability of the networking applications to be aware of the existence and characteristics of the user´s activities and environments. In rapidly changing scenarios, such as the ones considered in the fields of mobile, pervasive, or ubiquitous computing, systems have to adapt their behavior based on the current conditions and the dynamicity of the environment they are immersed in. In order to function according to a user´s expectation, these systems have to consider the situation, activity, and state of the user and all other relevant entities. Such information is commonly referred to as context. This paper provides an overview of context definitions, architectures for supporting context aware applications, approaches to capture and manage context information and the use of context information in contextaware systems. A number of research challenges in context aware computing are also identified and discussed.