Towards the Ubiquitous Computer: A Mobile Agent Approach

Atlantis Ambient and Pervasive Intelligence, 2010

Ubiquitous computing names the third wave in computing, where the personal computing era appears when technology recedes into the background of our lives. The widespread use of new mobile technology implementing wireless communications such as personal digital assistants (PDAs) and smart phones enables a new type of advanced applications. In the past years, the main focus of research in mobile services has aimed at the anytime-anywhere principle (ubiquitous computing). However, there is more to it. The increasing demand for distributed problem solving led to the development of multi-agent systems. The latter are formed from a collection of independent software entities whose collective skills can be applied in complex and real-time domains. The target of such systems is to demonstrate how goal directed, robust and optimal behavior can arise from interactions between individual autonomous intelligent software agents. These software entities exhibit characteristics like autonomy, responsiveness, pro-activeness and social ability. Their functionality and effectiveness has proven to be highly depended on the design and development and the application domain. In fact, in several cases, the design and development of effective services should take into account the characteristics of the context from which a service is requested. Context is the set of suitable environmental states and settings concerning a user, which are relevant for a situation sensitive application in the process of adapting the services and information offered to the user. Agent technology seems to be the right technology to offer the possibility of exploring the dynamic context of the user in order to provide added-value services or to execute more and complex tasks. In this respect, agent-based ubiquitous computing can benefit from marrying the agent-based technology for the extensive usage of distributed functionality, to be deployed for lightweight devices and enable to combine ubiquity and intelligence in different application areas and challenge with questions the research communities in computer science, artificial intelligence and engineering. We noticed during the AAMAS workshop we organized about this issue in 2007 that, although a number of other books on ubiquitous computing have been published in the last years, none of these has focused on the agent-based perspective. So we opened a call for chapters to gather input and feedback concerning the above challenges, through the collection of the high-quality contributions that reflect and advance the state-of-the art in agent-based ubiquitous application systems. It brought together researchers, agent-based vii viii Agent-Based Ubiquitous Computing software developers, users and practitioners involved in the area of agent-based ubiquitous systems, coming from many disciplines, with the target to discuss the different fundamental principles for construction and design of agents for specific applications, how they cooperate and communicate, what tasks can be set and how different properties like coordination and communication have been implemented, and which are the different problems they had to cope with. Existing perspectives of ubiquitous agents within different application domains have been welcome, as well as the different mechanisms for design and cooperation that can be used within different agent building environments. Specifically, the book focused on the different disciplines contributing to the design, cooperation, coordination and implementation problems of ubiquitous computing applications and how these can be solved through the utilization of agents. Thanks are due to all contributors and referees for their kind cooperation and enthusiasm, and to Zeger Karssen (Editorial Atlantis Press) for his kind advice and help to publish this volume.

Today, mobile devices are used as personal objects, which contain own data about our activities, our personal life, etc. Also, these data are essential for the user and it is not acceptable to exchange these data on the network. Then, computing on these data can be done by importing applications. We present our work about moving applications from server to client host. We use mobile agent technology with the difficulties of heterogeneous platforms. Importing agent has to respect features of the device (version, technical interface, business interface, etc.). A first negotiation is settled to ensure that a set of useful agents are selected towards an embedded device. By the end of a scenario, features are recorded to improve negotiation algorithm for the future exchange. So, each exchanged agent is not only used for a mission but also for the next ones. We use our framework for collecting data from nomadic devices. The mobile agents bring back these data to server where they will be treated.

Sharp Technical …, 2004

There is an unprecedented amount of information available at our fingertips when we are at our desks. However, typical employees spend less time at their desks than ever before. In this article, we present our vision of the Ubiquitous Office, which offers mobile workers nomadic access to the key information and services that they need. By nomadic, we mean that they can travel light, taking nothing more than their mobile phone with them, and are still able to use network-connected peripherals around them. We have developed a prototype mobile solution including printers and mobile phones that tackles two important technical issues for the Ubiquitous Office: ergonomic search and browsing of documents on small appliances and secure transmission of documents to nearby peripherals.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2005

Ubiquitous systems will integrate computers invisibly and unobtrusively in everyday objects. Information will appear in new forms, i.e. data will be catched from single or multi-sensor devices and will be used for context extraction. New location-based services will be adapted to user preferences. For this the ubiquitous system needs to know user profiles, likings, and habits. As the user moves these information have to be sent to the new location of the user. Either the user carries her data on wearable or portable computers or the ubiquitous environment takes responsibility for transporting them. The amount of new devices and services makes an efficient use by centralized systems very difficult. The idea presented in this paper is that a virtual reflection of the user represented by a mobile agent accompanies her in the ubiquitous environment. Mobile agents offer a possibility to encapsulate information of a person and her preferences and perform location-based services of the ubiquitous system in the name of the user. Because of the personal data security and privacy are major concerns of such an agent system. This paper describes a ubiquitous mobile agent system named UbiMAS which has security extensions to provide high protection of agents and significant personal data. UbiMAS is used in a smart office environment with smart doorplates. M. Beigl and P. Lukowicz (Eds.): ARCS 2005, LNCS 3432, pp. 79-92, 2005. c Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005 80 Faruk Bagci et al.

… on Intelligence in …, 2000

The environment of nomadic computing is very different from that of traditional distributed systems today. The variety of mobile workstations, handheld devices, and smart phones, which nomadic users use to access data services in the Internet, increases at growing rate. The outcome is new demands for adaptability of data services. Agent technology is one of the software solutions that may be used to fulfill the demand of "anytime-anywhere-anyhow" access to data services. The research project Monads addresses some of the fundamental challenges in supporting nomadic applications: adaptability to available computing and communication resources that vary in tempo-spatial space and short-term (1-30 minutes) predictions of available resources. In addition to adaptability and predictions, efficient agent communication in wireless environments is a mandatory prerequisite.

13th IEEE International Workshops on Enabling Technologies: Infrastructure for Collaborative Enterprises, 2004

The current technological trend depicts a scenario in which space and movement represent aspects that should be considered as first class concepts. Models and conceptualizations are necessary to understand and design ubiquitous systems that are context-aware not just from a technological point of view. The aim of this paper is propose the Multilayered Multi Agent Situated System (MMASS) model (which provides an interaction model that is strongly dependant on the spatial structure of the environment) as a conceptual architecture for ubiquitous computing applications. The main contribution of this modelling approach to this domain is to provide a conceptual tool that allows to manage space as a first class concept and to consider in a uniform way both physical and logical spaces. After a brief presentation of the MMASS model, a sample application domain will illustrate how the model can be adopted to specify different aspects that are involved in a ubiquitous system.

The recent evolution of small-sized electronic devices and their growing computational power turned the concept of pervasive computing into a reality not very distant in the future. Researchers are currently developing systems to provide the basic software infrastructure needed for next generation pervasive computing environments. In these systems, however, the possibilities offered by the use of mobile agents are being overlooked. In this paper, we argue that mobile agents, due to its inherent flexibility, can bring a number of benefits to pervasive computing systems. Furthermore, we propose a novel architecture that uses mobile agents to perform three common tasks of pervasive computing more efficiently: system adaptation, component updates and QoS negotiation. * This research is supported by grants from CNPq-Brazil (Kit Enxoval proc. 68.0118/01-2) and FAPESP-Brazil (proc. 01/03861-0).

2002

The Personal Server is a mobile device that enables you to readily store and access the data and applications you carry with you through interfaces found in the local environment. Unlike conventional mobile computers with relatively poor user interfaces, it does not have a display at all, instead wirelessly utilizing displays, keyboards and other IO devices found nearby. By co-opting large screens such as those found on desktop PCs, public display monitors, information kiosks, and other computers, a Personal Server is more effective than relying on a small mobile screen. This model goes beyond the mobile context and has wider implications for how we think about computing in general. A prototype system, including applications, system infrastructure, and a mobile platform, has been built to fully explore this model. This prototype sheds light on the suitability of standard components to support such a computing model, and from this illuminates directions for the design of future ubiquitous computing systems.

Ubiquitous computing refers to embedding computers and communication in our environment. Ubiquitous computing provides an attractive vision for the future of computing. The idea behind the ubiquitous computing is to make the computing power disappear in the environment, but will always be there whenever needed or in other words it means availability and invisibility.These invisible computers will not have keyboards or screens, but will watch us, listen to us and interact with us. Ubiquitous computing environments involve the interaction, coordination, and cooperation of numerous, casually accessible, and often invisible computing devices. One is happy when ones desires are fulfilled.The highest ideal of ubicomp is to make a computer so imbedded, so fitting, so natural, that we use it without even thinking about it. Ubiquitous computing is referred as pervasive computing throughout the paper. One of the goals of ubiquitous computing is to enable devices to sense changes in their environment and to automatically adapt and act based on these changes based on user needs and preferences The prime goal of this technology is to make human life more simple, safe and efficient by using the ambient intelligence of computers. Ubiquitous computing therefore induces a paradigm shift in the way we use computers: Instead of bringing the world into the computer (the Virtual Realityparadigm), computational power is now brought to the objects of the physica world. Eventually, the vision of Ubiquitous Computing induces a new way of thinking about computers in the world, one that takes into account the natural human environment and allows the computers themselves to vanish into the background. This paper presents a number of compelling applications using ubiquitous computing and addresses the associated security and usability concerns.