Functionality configuration for eHome systems

Abstract

New developments and decreasing costs of electronic appliances enable the realization of pervasive systems in our daily environment. In our work, we focus on eHome systems. The price of individual development and adaption of the software making up these systems is one of the major problems preventing their large-scale adoption. In this paper, we introduce an approach built upon functionality composition for automatic service configuration in different environments. We transform the repetitive development process to a single development process followed by a repetitive configuration process. This configuration process is supported by our tool suite, the eHomeConfigurator. The result is a configuration graph, capable of describing dependencies and contexts of components in the eHome field. The tool suite is used to configure and deploy various services on different home environments. Compared to the classical development process, the effort for setting up eHome systems is reduced significantly.

Dynamic Adaptability for Smart Environments

“…The SCD-process as described in [4] aims at reducing development costs per eHome by increasing the amount of possible service reuse. Thus services are developed once and enriched with a specification.…”

“…To cope with the described dynamics, we redesigned the SCD-process described in [4] to meet the new requirements discussed above. Our approach focuses on considering runtime changes concerning user movement through different locations and device mobility.…”

“…The scenario presented above requires e. g. some means of automated person and device detection. The demonstration environments described in [4] and [6], which we use as testbeds, provide these capabilities e. g. by means of video cameras or remote controls for the different users to log in. We assume that appropriate technologies will be available for future eHomes at low prices.…”

“…The customization of the eHome software is achieved later on by composition of the services in a process of specification, configuration, and deployment. This process is called the SCD-process [4].…”

“…In [4], a tool called eHomeConfigurator is presented, which enables the SCDprocess by employing a model-driven approach based on Fujaba. Fujaba is a tool for specifying a software's data model and application logic using different UML diagrams [5].…”