A semantic approach for building pervasive spaces

Abstract

Large and pervasive sensing, communications, and computing infrastructures are enabling the realization of pervasive spaces. Enabling such spaces, however, encompasses a set of challenges. First, programming each application such that it connects to each sensor and it interprets the data being sensed requires a concentration of expertise that is rarely available. Second, achieving a wise and fair usage of the infrastructures is impossible with current approaches due to their lack of awareness of domain and application semantics. This paper summarizes a PhD dissertation that focuses on designing and implementing a middleware that addresses these challenges and overcomes the limitations of previous approaches by featuring a distributed streaming architecture and by being aware of the semantics of the space and applications. Namely, we focus on (i) the design and implementation of the overall system architecture and its underlying programming and execution model, (ii) a set of mechanisms to provide the right level of abstraction to applications, and (iii) a set of mechanisms that are able to protect privacy due to the inclusion of semantics in the middleware.