A 3-layer architecture for smart environment models

Enriched with more and more intelligent devices modern homes rapidly transform into smart environments. Their growing capabilities enable the implementation of a new generation of ubiquitous applications, but also raise the complexity of the development. Developers of applications for smart environments must cope with a multitude of sensors, devices, users and thus contexts. We present a model-based approach for modeling of, reasoning about and controlling smart environments. A context model provides adaptive applications with a unified access to the smart home environment and, through a unique approach of utilizing executable models, also reflects its state at runtime. The presented approach supports runtime user interface adaption and reconfiguration for seamless interaction and has been successfully utilized to build several context-adaptive applications running in our smart home testbed.