Context-aware Workflow Management Engine for Networked Devices

In this paper, we present a novel Context-aware Workflow Management Engine (CWME) which offers seamless control and coordination of ubiquitous networked devices in a heterogeneous, autonomous, and distributed (HAD) environment. CWME adopts the concept from contemporary Business Process Management (BPM) systems where end users are allowed to design or customize activities and workflows involving network devices. A working CWME prototype has been developed as a proof of concept and tested using a device simulator. During the workflow design phase, a Feature Interaction Detection Engine (FIDE) is adopted in our system to detect all possible operation conflicts between the devices. During workflow execution phase, we propose Justified-Event-Condition -Action (JECA) rule and a Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) to enhance CWME's exception handling capability.