SPBCA: Semantic Pattern-Based Context-Aware Middleware

This paper proposes a semantic pattern-based context-aware (SPBCA) middleware for ubiquitous computing environments. It introduces two concepts, the ontology and the proactive conversion, to solve the heterogeneity issues existing in the interaction process in the ubiquitous computing environments. Furthermore, it can support user-centric context awareness not only by automatic reactive information processing, but also by service customization at run-time. To enable semantic pattern adaptation, we employ ontologies to define semantics of various concepts. The functions of proactive conversion and run-time service customization are implemented with a reactive event mechanism. User defined services are represented in SWRL language which is triggered by Pellet engine. The SPBCA middleware is applicable to an internal, local network environment. Hence, we exploit a tuple space based decentralized architecture as our middleware basis which supports asynchronous, context-sensitive communication, and privacy sensitivity.