Analysis process for context aware applications in pervasive environments

Context awareness is one of the major research areas of pervasive computing. Several proposals for the design of context aware applications rely on a closed feedback loop that performs four phases. Monitoring and collecting context (phase 1), analyzing the collected context to detect changes (phase 2), deciding adaptation actions related to the changes (phase 3) and performing and executing the corresponding adaptation actions (phase 4) to deal with the changes. In this paper, we discuss the analysis phase (phase 2). We propose an analysis approach that aims at detecting the context changes and raising notifications when changes occur. The analysis approach is formalized through an analysis process that aims to facilitate the design of the analysis phase for a context aware application. The analysis process is described by a graph illustrating a set of steps that must be executed to perform the analysis process. In order to demonstrate the usability of our approach, we present a Smart Building case study.