Software Engineering Support for the Development of Context-aware, Adaptive Applications for Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing Environments

The main motivation for this research is the increasing popularity received by mobile and pervasive computing applications in combination with the increased complexity which is involved in the development of software systems targeting such environments. In this respect, two basic dimensions are detected: environment sensing and environment shaping. The former refers to the ability of systems to monitor their environment with the purpose of collecting information which is relevant to their operation. The latter, refers to the ability of systems to adapt themselves and their environment by means of adapting their own operation, or instructing changes in other devices they control (e.g. actuators embedded in the environment). Evidently, a critical requirement for facing and tackling these challenges is to glue the sensing and shaping parts together, by means of appropriate algorithms for reasoning on the environment situation and deciding on the appropriate adaptations. While these subjects are already quite complex on an individual level, developing suitable adaptive applications tackling all three of them increases the complexity substantially. The primary objective of my research is to encompass the complexity involved in the development of context-aware, adaptive systems targeting mobile and pervasive computing environments by introducing and describing appropriate software engineering techniques and algorithms.