Towards context-aware behaviour generation

Abstract

Development of Context-Aware and Mobile (CAM) applications requires software engineers to write complex code (e.g., adaptation mechanisms, context management) and deal with heterogeneity issues regarding devices and sensors. A promise to deal with this issue approach is the combination of MDE (Model-Driven Engineering) design principles and CAM middleware platforms. Following this approach, we present in this paper CRITiCAL, a ConfiguRation Tool for Context Aware and mobiLe applications. This tool enables visual modelling of contextual information and adaptive behaviour of a CAM application. From visual models, a code generation is performed and its result contains all methods required for communication between the application and a context management middleware. We aim at offering a simplified and visual way to define context acquisition mechanisms (e.g., get user location) and context rules in order to accelerate the development of CAM applications.