Smart Spaces

Presented byAmit Mahajan

TOC What are "Smart Spaces"? Examples. Challenges UMBC Centaurus Project. HP CoolTown Project. MIT Oxygen Project. UIUC ActiveSpaces Project. UW Portolano, UCLA MUSE Some other projects links...

What are "Smart Spaces"? Trend in computer systems

Ubiquity of tiny, low-cost, embedded processors.

Wireless transceivers integrated with these processors.

Reduction of power consumption. Mobile P-III. Highly modular and portable software with

abstract interfaces. COM and CORBA. Low cost sensor technologies. RF and

Bluetooth.

What are "Smart Spaces"? These trends permit permit rethinking of

established communication modes between entities, creating what is called "Smart Spaces". "Smart Office" or "Smart Homes".

A smart space is dynamic federation of wireless components into an adhoc network, to enable us work more effectively with available devices. Smart spaces make work easier and increase efficiency.

Examples User carries smart card to communicate the

URL of the presentation to projector. Verbally convey the name of person to call,

retrieves address book, telephone interface and connects.

When phone rings, it communicates to the music system to mute itself.

Switching lights on/off or Playing music using PDA.

Challenges Inherit all the disadvantages of mobile

computing - resources, bandwidth,etc. Heterogeneous devices and protocols have to

be seamlessly handled. Vertical Handoffs. Interaction Technologies : speech and visual. Security (eavesdropping or denial of service) Network issues like intermittent connectively

have to be managed transparently. Software components have to be designed

horizontally ease plug-in.

UMBC Centaurus Connect wireless devices to work collectively for

the mobile user. Provides an infrastructure and communication

protocol for providing smart services to these mobile devices.

Provide better and more relevant support to individual users.

Minimizes the load on the resource-poor portable device.

List of services is made available to the client who can choose the service after authentication.

Components Communication Managers

Handle all the communication between Centaurus system and the Centaurus Client.

Modules to handle different protocol (IR, RF, Ethernet,etc.)

Layer1 and Layer2

Service Managers Controllers of the system that co-ordinate the message

passing protocol between Clients and Services. Responsible for service discovery.

Components Centaurus Services are objects that offer

certain services to the Centaurus Client. Services register with the Service Manager by

sending CCML (Centuarus Capability Markup Lang) file.

Performs a certain action on behalf of the Client. These Services could range from controlling a light

switch or printer.

A Client is a special kind of Service. Registers itself with a Service Manager. On registration, it receives the ServiceList, which

contains the current list of Services. Client always has the updated list of services.

Security and Status Update Security aspect of the framework : combines

Distributed Trust and Kerberos. Ticket granting server (TS) issues time bound signed

tickets. To access a Service on a certain Service Manager, the

Client sends its CCML and the ticket. The Service Manager checks that the ticket is valid and

from the TS and then allows the Client to register Status Update:

Update from a Service, sent to clients by Service Manger. Implementation:

Service for controlling a lamp (hardware). Service for playing MP3 files on Unix (software).

HP CoolTown Offers a web model for supporting nomadic

users. Automatic discovery of URLs and using

localized web servers for directories, to create location-aware systems

Premise of using web Ubiquitous access. No middleware. Locality.

Architecture Sensing:

Bottom layer of the infrastructure enables the user to acquire URLs from their surroundings or from the physical entities in their surroundings.

Obtain the corresponding URL automatically using IR, RF, Barcode, Electronic tags or Optical recognition.

In direct sensing, the beacon or tag directly presents the URL of a web resource.

In indirect sensing, it presents an identifier such as an ISBN or a barcode. Resolver, a service, returns a URL when given an identifier.

Architecture Context and Physical discovery:

Attach beacons or tags to easy-to-find points on physical entities or in physical places and by storing appropriate URL values or ID.

Obtain electronic representation (web page) of entity or place from URL.

The web presence of the designated objects will appear as links in the place's web pages.

Place Manager for web pages, directory and resolver.

Content exchange supports the opposite of browsing, pushing the content:

Direct content post Indirect content post

MIT Oxygen DARPA supported project. Enabling people "to do more by doing less," that

is, to accomplish more with less work. In the future, computation will be freely

available everywhere, like oxygen in the air we breathe.

Connect dynamically changing configurations of self-identifying mobile and stationary devices to form collaborative regions.

Configure collaborative regions automatically, creating topologies and adapting them to mobility and change

Oxygen Automation: Of mundane fns. Machines both listen

to what we say and do more themselves. Appointment agent may decide or defer decision to user.

Devices share some degree of trust. Resource and location discovery systems address

privacy issues by giving resources and users control over how much to reveal.

Devices use multiple communication protocols. Vertical handoffs among these protocols.

Challenges: Hardware must become adaptable, scalable, efficient and

computationally powerful. Software and protocols must become adaptable and

flexible.

UIUC ActiveSpace NSF funding. Mobicom 99. Physical spaces become interactive systems,

or in other terms, Active Spaces. A middleware operating system (Gaia OS ) that

manages the resources contained in an Active Space.

User entering an Active Space should not require a user login; yet users must be authenticated and user Spaces must be secure.

ActiveSpaces Components Components:

Adaptive communication substrate: multiple communication channels and vertical handoffs.

Unified object bus: provides a uniform method for devices to communicate. Dynamic manipulation of components running on a network (creation, destruction, dependency resolver).

Gaia OS services: QoS-Aware Resource Management, Security Service, Sensing Service, Automatic Configuration Service and Rendering Service

UCLA MUSE MUSE is a middleware architecture for sensor

smart spaces. Concentrates on issue of "Sensing services"

(detection of an event or condition in the environment) in smart spaces.

Provides services which satisfy certain required qualities. E.g. find the "best" printer.

Characterize the "quality of service". E.g. for printer what is good QoS-speed, quality, etc.

Used Java for portability and Jini for service discovery.

Goals and Status Goals of MUSE :

Develop API for building and accessing services. Construct algorithms for optimal usage of device

within their resource constraints. Memory component to store the smart spaces data. Automatically adding new sensor devices.

Current Implementation: A skeleton API to build sensor services and allow for

consumers to query sensors for information. A prototype implementation of MIRA, a persistent

memory component for sensor smart spaces. A sample sensor smart space using the MUSE

infrastructure.

UW ProtoLano Darpa and Intel. Portolano charts are the seacoast charts created

by Portuguese sailors of the 14th and 15th centuries. Led to discovery of the New World.

“Invisible Computing” : the entire infrastructure and the devices must be as invisible as possible, requiring little or no configuration and performing reliably and predictably.(E.g. file format or connectivity issues)

Agents operating autonomously execute user “intentions” (visual and speech) and not on user’s “explicit commands” accepted by keyboards or mice.

Portolano Example scheduling agent automatically provides

available data. Multiple interfaces have to be managed (PDA,

regular display). Use XML for document interchange which leaves presentation to clients.

To handle intermittent connections, data may find services on its own for route discovery. Code in data executed at major nodes. Low-power modes.

Allowed to use services for which have permissions. Kerberos, Ipsec and signatures.

Links MIT Oxygen: http://oxygen.lcs.mit.edu/ HP CoolTown: http://www.cooltown.hp.com/ UW Portolano: http://portolano.cs.washington.edu/ MS EasyLiving:

http://www.research.microsoft.com/easyliving/ GaTech eClass: http://www.cc.gatech.edu/fce/ Berkeley Ninja: http://ninja.cs.berkeley.edu UMBC Centaurus:

http://research.ebiquity.org/centaurus/ UIUC ActiveSpaces:

http://choices.cs.uiuc.edu/ActiveSpaces/ UCLA MUSE: http://mmsl.cs.ucla.edu/muse/