http://www.nexus.uni-stuttgart.

de
Spatial World Models
for Mobile Context-
Aware Applications
Collaborative
Research Center 627
SFB_627_DRUCK3.indd 7 06.06.2007 9:16:44 Uhr
Vision
Collaborative
Research Center 627
The proliferation of sensor technology, along with
advances in wireless communication and mobile
devices, allow for context-aware applications. Those
applications take into account the context of real
world entities, such as a users current location,
physical environment, or even activity. They are able
to act upon and adapt to changes in the real world
and select and present information depending on
the applications context. Since almost all application
domains can benet from context information,
we envision most applications to be context-aware
in the near future.
Billions of sensors located in our physical environ-
ment collect a huge amount of context information.
This information will be fed into numerous spatial
context models building the basis for context-aware
applications. The models may include stationary ob-
jects, like streets or buildings, as well as mobile
objects, such as people or vehicles. The spatial mod-
els may differ in various ways, e.g., in topographical
or topological nature, in different levels of detail,
or in coverage of different areas and aspects of the
real world.
For both economic and technical reasons, it is highly
desirable for context information to be shared by a
wide variety of applications. We envision - in analogy
to the WWW - a World Wide Space, which provides
the conceptual and technological framework for inte-
grating and sharing context models. It is open in
the sense that any commercial and non-commercial
provider can place context models into this space.
The collection of context models is federated and
leads to a large scale context model, offering a glo-
bal and consistent view on the context data. The
federation allows for complex spatial queries, includ-
ing continuous evaluation and stream-based pro-
cessing. If the context model is enriched by tempo-
ral concepts, applications can query not only the
current model state, but also states of the past or
even predicted ones. To protect context data, appli-
cation-specic views can be dened for individually
controlling model access. We envision the World
Wide Space to be the common basis for future con-
text-aware applications.
SFB_627_DRUCK3.indd 8 06.06.2007 9:16:46 Uhr
SFB_627_DRUCK3.indd 9 06.06.2007 9:16:50 Uhr
Research Objectives
The main research objective is to investigate meth-
ods to create, manage, visualize and use federated
context models, which are the foundation of the
envisioned World Wide Space. The context models
under investigation are large-scale, highly dynamic,
and complex in terms of the abstractions supported.
In particular, the abstractions to be offered include
stationary geographic objects, mobile objects, ob-
jects associated with dynamic state information, as
well as virtual objects augmenting reality.
Moreover, the research will focus on innovative
context-aware applications built on spatial context
models. It is also investigated how the existence
of those models affects the system-level concepts
and mechanisms themselves.
Of particular interest is the quality of context, which
impacts almost all areas of research in Nexus. The
investigations focus on quality concepts and metrics
as well as algorithms considering context quality.
SFB_627_DRUCK3.indd 10 06.06.2007 9:16:51 Uhr
Institute of Architecture of
Application Systems (IAAS)
Prof. Dr. Frank Leymann
Institute of Communication
Networks and Computer
Engineering (IKR)
Prof. Dr. Paul Khn
Institute of Industrial
Manufacturing and
Management (IFF)
Life Cycle Management
Research Group
Prof. Dr. Engelbert Westkmper
Institute for Natural Language
Processing (IMS)
Theoretical Computational
Linguistics Research Group (TCL)
Prof. Dr. Hinrich Schtze
Institute of Parallel and
Distributed Systems (IPVS)
Applications of Parallel and
Distributed Systems Research
Group (AS)
Prof. Dr. Bernhard Mitschang
Dr. Daniela Nicklas
Image Understanding
Research Group (BV)
Prof. Dr. Paul Levi
Distributed Systems
Research Group (VS)
Prof. Dr. Kurt Rothermel

Institute of Philosophy (IP)

C
O
O
R
D
I
N
A
T
E
S

;
M
=
GRIDCOORDINATES8;M=
REFERENCEPOLYGON
CONTOURLINE
REDUCEDPOLYGON
Communication and Security
Communication mechanisms and security concepts
are key building blocks of context-aware systems.
Therefore, novel communication infrastructures are
investigated that allow mobile clients to efciently
access spatial context models over heterogeneous
networks, and which further use context information
for the optimization and adaptation of communica-
tion processes facing changing situations. Moreover,
context models enable new communication para-
digms like context cast. With context cast, informa-
tion can be distributed selectively among users or
applications with a certain context, requiring special
overlay networks and context-aware routing algo-
rithms. Finally, multi-lateral security solutions for
open context-aware systems are developed, in
which not all involved parties can be considered
trustworthy. The challenge is to fulll both, privacy
needs of users and security and accounting require-
ments of content and service providers.
A1 Context-Aware Communication Control
A2 Context-Aware Communication
A3 Security, Privacy and Accounting in Context-
Aware Systems
SFB_627_DRUCK3.indd 1 06.06.2007 9:16:38 Uhr
Management of Context Models
The challenges of this area are the modeling and
provisioning of the federated context models.
This includes different interaction methods (e. g.,
spatio-temporal queries, continuous queries, and
event-based communication), archiving and data
mining on historical context data, and a novel
stream-based operator concept. This allows for a
dynamic distributed query processing that offers a
virtualization of the underlying sensors and context
data providers, integrating dynamic data from
sensors with other data sources. To efciently nd
all data sources that are relevant for given informa-
tion need, new concepts for distributed index
structures are needed. Managing data histories of
mobile objects is especially challenging, because
their spatial relation changes over the time. The col-
lected data histories can be used for predictions
and in recognition of situations as well as for improv-
ing query processing. The management of context
information will also be extended to hybrid system
models that allow for a exible integration of context
management in mobile ad-hoc networks with infra-
structure-based data grids.
B1 Homogenized and Virtualized Model
Management
B3 Hybrid Model Management
B5 Dynamic, Time-Referenced Model Data
Physical World
Spatial World Model
Digital Information Spaces
SFB_627_DRUCK3.indd 2 06.06.2007 9:16:39 Uhr
Model Interaction and Sensors
The acquisition and the presentation of context in-
formation are crucial for connecting the abstract
context model to reality. Data in general and context
information in especially has to be entered into the
system and it has to be updated continuously to
faithfully represent a consistent view onto selected
parts of the model. Users need to interact with it
everywhere and in an intuitive manner in order to
benet from the contextual information in novel
ways. Projects in this research area deal with the
acquisition of sensor data, with their consistency
analysis, and with the context-oriented visualization
of federated information providing advanced inter-
action mechanisms. Of special research interest are
geographic data and the generalization of city mod-
els and an adequate and distributed visualization
on mobile client devices. Metrics and valuation of
heterogeneous sensor data are developed to inte-
grate and to visualize uncertain measurements and
inaccurate information in order to detect and resolve
ambiguities and to retain data consistency and
quality across the federated context model at vari-
ous scales.
C1 Consistency and Generalization of 3D Geo Data
C3 Sensor-Supported, Context-Based Consistency
Analysis
C5 Context-Aware Mobile Visualization

Application Application
Sensor
Data
Geo
Data
SFB_627_DRUCK3.indd 3 06.06.2007 9:16:40 Uhr
Applications and Acceptability
In this area, several context-aware applications are
developed, to both validate the concepts of federat-
ed context models and to explore the potential
of context-awareness in two given application do-
mains. This work also gives a deep insight on the
acceptability of context-awareness in applications.
The research activities of the Smart Factory are ori-
ented towards the homogenization of sensor infor-
mation related to production and management elds
and the improvement of communication between
factory resources, as well. Context-based assistant
systems are multi-purpose assistant systems which
allow users with sensory handicaps and minor cog-
nitive or physical disabilities a safe and independent
mobility. All developments are accompanied by
philosophical reections and acceptability considera-
tions, focused on security and privacy. Also, the
economical aspects of mobile context-aware appli-
cations will be examined.
D1 Smart Factory
D2 Context-Based Assistant Systems for People
with Sensory Handicaps
D3 Reection and Evaluation
SFB_627_DRUCK3.indd 4 06.06.2007 9:16:42 Uhr
Application Support
This area focuses on the development of software
architectures and development tools for context-
aware applications, on the collection of context sen-
sitive natural language information and on the re-
cognition of complex situations. Main research is
done in the eld of model driven development tools
to ease the development of context-aware applica-
tions, e. g. , by extending workow modeling and
execution technologies to the eld of context-aware
applications. With the help of semantic methods it
must be examined how external data can be repre-
sented in the federated context model. Here, geo-
graphical data and natural language data are of spe-
cial interest. Situation recognition should not only
be accessible for certain predened applications, but
for every kind of application. The aim is the develop-
ment of a reliable framework for distributed situation
recognition.
E1 Context-Aware Workows
E2 Semantic Methods
E3 Distributed Situation Recognition Based on
Evaluated Context Information
? ?
SFB_627_DRUCK3.indd 5 06.06.2007 9:16:43 Uhr
General Projects Work Groups
Metrics and Valuation of Context The quality of
context information may highly differ due to the
heterogeneity of context information and the variety
of approaches for context acquisition. This cross-
cutting project aims at a reference model for assess-
ing context quality.
This model has to incorporate the abstraction levels
sensor data, observable context and situation as
well as different aspects of context quality like deg-
radation, consistency and trust.
Mobility and Security The working group coordi-
nates the interdisciplinary research on mobility
and security aspects. Both elds require intensive
cooperation among the involved projects. Therefore,
the working group organizes workshops and forms
task forces to foster cross-project research and
publications. Research topics include architectures
for open context-aware systems, security and priva-
cy solutions, and mobile communication issues.
Modeling and Consistency The topics of context
modeling and support for application require com-
mon research and the thorough discussion of inter-
faces between several projects. Sample goals of
this working group are the participation in the stand-
ardization process of 3D city models (CityXML),
a concept for hybrid geographical/symbolical location
models, or the provision of model-based approaches
for application development.
SFB_627_DRUCK3.indd 6 06.06.2007 9:16:43 Uhr
Facts
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
2000 2002 DFG Nexus Research Group
2003 2006 Collaborative Research Center,
1st funding period
2007 2010 Collaborative Research Center,
2nd funding period
66
Funding
Project Periods
Staff
Universitt Stuttgart
Institut fr Parallele und
Verteilte Systeme
Universittsstrae 38
70569 Stuttgart
Germany
http://www.nexus.uni-stuttgart.de
Prof. Dr. Kurt Rothermel
(Center Coordinator)
[email protected]
Contact
C
o
n
c
e
p
t
i
o
n


K
.

R
o
t
h
e
r
m
e
l
,

M
.

M
a
t
t
h
i
e
s
e
n



D
e
s
i
g
n

h
t
t
p
:
/
/
w
w
w
.
b
u
e
r
o
-
s
.
d
e
Coordinator
SFB_627_DRUCK3.indd 12 06.06.2007 9:16:52 Uhr