Ìóûöö× Ëëòøøøòø Çç Blockinø Åóð Blockinøøø× Ì Blockinòóðóóý Èöóóööñññ Ùòòòö Óòøöö Blockinø Áëì¹¾¼¼¼¹¾¾¼¿½´´çêìììµ

Towards a Sentient Obje t Model Adrian Fitzpatri k, Gregory Biegel, Siobh an Clarke, Vinny Cahill Distributed Systems Group Department of Computer S ien e University of Dublin, Trinity College Dublin 2, Ireland ffirstname.lastnameg s.t d.ie 1Abstra t|A sentient obje t is a mobile, intelligent software omponent whi h is able to sense its environment via sensors and rea t to sensed information via a tuators. Sentient obje ts are ontext-aware, aware of both their internal state and the state of their surrounding lo al environment, and are ooperative, ooperating with other sentient obje ts both through traditional ommuni ation hannels and via the physi al environment. In this paper we des ribe a sentient obje t model and in doing so provide on rete definitions for the terms sensor, a tuator, and sentient obje t as used in our model. Keywords| Sentient omputing, mobile omputing, ontext-aware, stigmergy I. Introdu tion The ontinued evolution of omputing and ommuni ation te hnologies towards ever smaller and more powerful devi es has led to a new generation of appli ations where omputing power is widely deployed throughout the environment. The development of su h pervasive omputing environments has also been driven by the availability of improved sensor te hnology providing a urate and trustworthy sensing at a ordable pri es. Cheap, ubiquitous sensors oupled with improved omputing power and wireless data ommuni ations have made a new lass of de entralised and proa tive appli ations possible. It is envisaged that this lass of appli ations will onsist of a very large number of mobile software omponents a epting input from the environment via a variety of sensors and autonomously a ting upon the environment via a variety of a tuators. These omponents will ontain intelligen e to allow them to a t autonomously based upon a quisition of information from the environment, and will ooperate with ea h other using a range of di erent networking te hnologies. It is these mobile, intelligent software omponents that we term sentient obje ts and in this paper we present a model for the development of su h obje ts. We provide on rete de nitions for the terms sensor, a tuator and sentient obje t. Context awareness [1℄ is a hara teristi of rea tive sentient obje ts and this is dealt with in our model through the use of ontextual information gleaned from sensors to ontrol the a tions of a sentient obje t. Finally, our model addresses the oordination of multiple obje ts, via the physi al environment using biologi ally in1This work has been supported by the European Union's Information So ieties Te hnology Programme under ontra t IST-2000-26031 (CORTEX) S e n s o r s A c t u a t o r s Rule(s)