SCAFOS: linking sensor data to context‐aware applications using abstract events

Abstract

Purpose

The event‐driven paradigm is appropriate for context aware, distributed applications, yet basic events may be too low level to be meaningful to users. The authors aim to argue that this bottom‐up approach is insufficient to handle very low‐level sensor data or to express all the queries users might wish to make.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors propose an alternative model for querying and subscribing transparently to distributed state in a real‐time, ubiquitous, sensor‐driven environment such as is found in Sentient Computing.

Findings

The framework consists of four components: a state‐based, temporal first‐order logic (TFOL) model that represents the concrete state of the world, as perceived by sensors; an expressive TFOL‐based language, the Abstract Event Specification Language (AESL) for creating abstract event definitions, subscriptions and queries; a higherorder service (Abstract Event Detection Service) that accepts a subscription containing an abstract event definition as an argument and in return publishes an interface to a further service, an abstract event detector; and a satisfiability service that applies classical, logical satisfiability in order to check the satisfiability of the AESL definitions against the world model, in a manner similar to a constraint‐satisfaction problem.

Originality/value

The paper develops a model‐based approach, appropriate for distributed, heterogeneous environments.

Citation

Katsiri, E., Bacon, J. and Mycroft, A. (2007), "SCAFOS: linking sensor data to context‐aware applications using abstract events", International Journal of Pervasive Computing and Communications, Vol. 3 No. 4, pp. 347-377. https://doi.org/10.1108/17427370710863112