A Context Framework for Ambient Intelligence

A. Dogac, G. B. Laleci, Y. Kabak Middle East Technical University

aVsonline.blogspot.com aVs 997 techfamily

Motivation
Context servers

interoperable Machine processable Security & privacy

Ambient Intelligence
Ubiquitous computing Ubiquitous communication Intelligent User Friendly Interfaces
 Better integration of technology into our environment, so that people can freely and interactively use it  Seamless (and secure) delivery of services and applications

Characteristics of AmI
Awareness
 ability of the system to locate and recognize objects and people, their locations, and their needs

Intelligence
 allows the system to analyze the context, adapt to people that live in it, learn from their behavior, and eventually to recognize as well as show emotion

Adaptable
 learn about the environment and the people within it in order to optimize their own behavior

User Context
Any information that can be used to characterize the user and her situation
 Coming from sensors Temporal and spatial location Environmental attributes Resources nearby Physiological measurements  User preferences and profile Schedule, agenda Social context

An Example Scenario (from ISTAG)

Maria lands to an airport in a Far Eastern Country The immigration officer replaced by a device
 Through its sensors, detects identities, performs visa and passport control (using Marias P-Com)

A rented car waiting for her at the exit Her Hotel has been reserved by her personal software agent

Issues to be considered
Identity information should be understandable by any authorized device Identity information
 Passport and visa information  Machine proccesable  Interoperable  Context Ontologies should be developed
Context servers queries

P-Com

Issues to be considered
Privacy
 Access should be limited to authorized entities  The user should be able to state how much information to disclose and to whom  Immigration device
Location, visa, passport information

 Role or personal identity based privacy mechanisms

Issues to be considered
The context servers needs to recognize the device type It should be possible to exploit context to discover and compose Web Services

Proposed System Architecture

Context Ontology
Have formal specification
 Machine processable  Can be queried through query languages

Define shared conceptualizations

 Captures consensual knowledge

Enable knowledge sharing in an open and dynamic distributed system

Context Ontology
Define all of the concepts in a taxonomic hierarchy Define the properties and allowed values (facets) Define the relationships among the classes
Class Subclass Subclass
properties properties

Provides a means for intelligent agents to reason about the contextual information

Web Ontology Language OWL

OWL is a semantic markup language being developed by the World Wide Web Consortium
 for publishing and sharing ontologies  derived from DAML+OIL

Security and Privacy Issues

Ontologies are stored in knowledgebases
 Data coming from sensor devices
Solar System (Minami & Kotz)

 Data coming from the context server

Limited to authorized entities Should be possible to state how much information will be disclosed to whom

Security and Privacy Issues

View mechanism
 Define views on the user context and grant access rights to different users  CREATE CLASS VIEW ScheduleOfMaria SUBCLASSOF Schedule SELECT X FROM ContextServer WHERE X.Name= Maria GRANT SELECT ON ScheduleOfMaria TO PersonalAgentOfMaria  KAON server (http://kaon.semanticweb.org)

Exploiting User Context for Web Service Discovery

For selecting services in a contextsensitive manner
 Services should be discovered based on their semantic descriptions

Agents should
 Query the context of the user  Maps the preferences of the user with the properties of the services advertised

Web Service Discovery

ebXML registry allows metadata to be stored in the registry through Classification mechanisms

An Example Travel Ontology

TravelService Transportation Service AirTransportation Accommodation Service Entertainment Service

ReserveAFlight

BuyATicket Properties of the Generic Service Class

originatingFrom

destinationTo

paymentMethod

Relating Services with Ontologies

ReserveAFlight

originatingFrom

destinationTo

paymentMethod

MyService

An example scenario
Understand s she doesnt have a valid visa ebXML Registry
Service Ontology defined in class hierarchies through OWL

Checks her Calendar Profile Finds the Queries for servicevisa the and its WSDL service of thelink Country Starts arranging her trip

invokes Retrieves WSDL desc.

An example scenario
Travel Service

Prefers air transfer, collects mileage from THY

Passport Service

Visa Service

Transportatio n Service

Accommodatio n Service

Entertainmen t Service

Air Transfer

Land Transfer

Sea Transfer

ebXML Registry

Checks her Preferences Profile

Queries for Finds the the THY consults service and reservation its WSDL service link invokes Retrieves WSDL desc.

Domain expert

Service Ontology defined in class hierarchies through OWL

Conclusions
AmI combine
 Ubiquity, context-awareness, intelligence and natural interaction

There is a need for strong mechanisms for storing and processing context Context Ontologies

Conclusions
To be acceptable AmI should provide
 Security  Privacy

Role-based access to context servers AmI should exploit user Context for reacting user needs automatically Web Service discovery and composition based on semantics

Thank you for your Attention Any Questions?

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