An approach to the integration of peer-to-peer systems with active environments

We adopt a form of group communication, called channeled multicast, for active rooms and other scenarios featuring strict real-time requirements, inherently unreliable communication, and a continuously changing set of context-aware autonomous systems. In our approach, rooted in multi-agent and team programming, coordination and cooperation are supported via “social awareness” and overhearing; agents form implicit organizations by actively participating to playing a role on a channel. We present an approach to the integration of Internetbased peer-to-peer systems into active rooms by means of agents on proxy devices accessing the users’ home peers; a home peer is a remote or delocalized repository of data and services. In addition to other advantages, our approach introduces a new flavor to the concept of neighborhood in P2P systems, reduces or even avoids the need for users to physically carry P2P-equipped mobile devices with them, and easily supports virtual environments created by the composition of smart rooms at different locations.