The WAY ahead: entity rendezvous through mobile agents

The Where Are You (WAY) system is a simple yet effective application for assisting mobile users in the performance of a variety of routine tasks. In particular one of the most common and costly usage of mobile devices is the synchronisation and rendezvous of people. The WAY system supports the mobile citizen in the location, tracking and rendezvousing with a variety of moving entities. WAY distinguishes and differentiates itself from other context sensitive service systems through its adoption of an agent oriented approach. We attempt to provide an alternate solution to this all too familiar problem, by employing an amalgamation of numerous appropriate technologies. These include context-aware mobile computing, geographic information systems (GIS), and mobile agent based technologies. System functionality is delivered through a collection of mobile lightweight intentional agents, which take cognisance of the memory and processing restrictions of personal digital assistants (PDAs). Such agents provide autonomous decision making capabilities and can amongst other things make decisions as to their location within a wireless topology and where necessary activate migration.