UbiqMuseum: A Bluetooth and Java Based Context-Aware System for Ubiquitous Computing

This paper evaluates the use of Bluetooth and Java based technologies in ubiquitous computing environments. Ubiquitous computing strongly depends on leveraging appropriate contextual information to users, according to their preferences and the environment in which they reside. We present UbiqMuseum – an experimental context-aware application that provides context-aware information to museum visitors. UbiqMuseum combines the productivity of Java with the universal connectivity provided by Bluetooth wireless technology. We describe the overall architecture and discuss the implementation steps taken to create our Bluetooth and Java based context-aware application. We demonstrate practicality of building a context-aware system by using UbiqMuseum as a proof of concept that integrates a combination of Bluetooth, WLAN and Ethernet LAN technologies. Finally we run some experiments in a small testbed to evaluate the performance and system behaviour. We evaluate the impact on throughput with varying packet size, coding types and device separation distance sending both images and text. We also present our findings in term of inquiry delay with respect to distance. Numerical results show that Bluetooth offers a relatively steady throughput up to 10 m while the inquiry delay does not increase significantly with distance. Juan-Carlos Cano is an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV) in Spain. He earned an M.Sc. and a Ph.D. in computer science from the UPV in 1994 and 2002 respectively. Between 1995–1997 he worked as a programming analyst at IBM's manufacturing division in Valencia. His current research interests include power aware routing protocols for mobile ad hoc networks and pervasive computing. You can contact him at jucano@disca.upv.es. Pietro Manzoni received the MS degree in computer science from the “Universitá degli Studi" of Milan, Italy, in 1989, and the Ph.D. degree in computer science from the Polytechnic University of Milan, Italy, in 1995. He is an associate professor of computer science at the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain. His research activity is related to wireless networks protocol design, modeling, and implementation. He is member of the IEEE. C.-K. Toh is currently a Professor and Chair in Communication Networks at Queen Mary University of London, UK. He is also the Director of the UK Ad Hoc Wireless Consortium and Director of the Queen Mary/Fudan Joint Research Lab in Mobile Networking and Ubiquitous Computing. Concurrently, he is also an Honorary Professor with the University of Hong Kong and an Adjunct Professor at Fudan University, Shanghai. Previously, he was the Director of Research with TRW Tactical Systems in California, USA (now Northrop Grumman Corporation) and was responsible for DARPA and Army programs in communications and networking. He had also worked for Hughes Research, ALR, HP, and was a professor at GeorgiaTech and University of California, Irvine. CK is the recipient of the 2005 IEEE Kiyo Tomiyasu Technical Medal Award, for “pioneering contributions to communication protocols in ad hoc mobile wireless networks." He is the author of “Wireless ATM & Ad Hoc Networks" (Kluwer Press, 1996) and “Ad Hoc Mobile Wireless Networks" (Prentice Hall Engineering Title Best Seller, 2001–2003). He is a recipient of the ACM Recognition of Service Award, for co-founding ACM MobiHoc Conference. He is a co-recipient of the Korean Science & Engineering Foundation Best Journal paper Award for his work on ad hoc TCP. CK was formerly the Chairman of IEEE Communications Society Technical Committee on Computer Communications and Chairman of IEEE Subcommittee on Ad Hoc Mobile Wireless Networks. He was an IEEE Expert/Distinguished Lecturer and had served as a Steering Committee Member for IEEE WCNC Conference and IEEE Transaction on Mobile Computing. He was a member of IEEE Communications Society Meetings & Conferences Board. CK was an editor for IEEE Networks, IEEE JSAC, IEEE transactions on Wireless Communications, Journal on Communication Networks, and IEEE Distributed Systems. He is a Fellow of four societies: British Computer Society, the IEE, the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers and the New Zealand Computer Society. He received his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from Cambridge University, England, and his executive education from Harvard.