Context-aware automatic service discovery and execution engine in mobile ad-hoc networks

• US 20050114493A1
• Filed: 10/20/2004
• Published: 05/26/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 10/22/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Deutschland GmbH (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Deutschland GmbH (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Kovacs, Erno, Mandato, Davide
• Granted Patent: US 7,681,203 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/61 taking into account QoS or priority requirements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/63 Routing a service request depending on the request content or context
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/005 Discovery of network devices, e.g. terminals
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/18 Processing of user or subscriber data, e.g. subscribed services, user preferences or user profiles; Transfer of user or subscriber data
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/18 Self-organising networks, e.g. ad-hoc networks or sensor networks

Abstract

In mobile computing and context awareness in mobile ad-hoc networks (502a) node connectivity is unpredictably time-varying. A middleware entity (110′) solves the problem of automatically executing a user-defined set of actions (214), collected in a user profile (210), upon detection of events such as an attachment of a mobile terminal (504) to the ad-hoc network (502a), changes of the underlying network topology, the moving of mobile terminals into the physical proximity of further mobile terminals, the presence of services and/or of users within said network, and a detachment of a mobile terminal from the ad-hoc network. Thereby, said actions (214) are invocations of services hosted on said mobile terminal (504) or other mobile terminals interconnected via said ad-hoc network (502a). The aforementioned profiles are stored on mobile terminals (e.g. PDAs, mobile phones, etc.) or on fixed or mobile customer-edge (CE) devices such as television sets, home gateways, etc. Also envisioned is the deployment of a distributed database holding said profiles (210).

A middleware entity (110′) is provided to allow easy deployment of applications leveraging the aforementioned feature. This entity enables users specifying a list of operations—offered by the services located in a network (502a)—that must automatically be executed whenever certain triggering conditions (204) are met. The monitoring of these triggering conditions (204) thereby leverages asynchronous notifications of specific events from various event producers. Said middleware entity (110′) comprises means (108) for creating (S1) bindings (206) between triggering conditions (204) and profiles (210) by assisting users to select triggering conditions (204), select or create profiles (210) and associate each triggering condition with at least one action (214) from a selected or created profile (210) as well as a core processing unit (110) for handling (S2) said actions (214) upon reception of event notification messages indicating any met triggering conditions (204) and allowing (S2a″) applications to directly install bindings (206) by applying a specially designed application programming interface (API).

Claims

1. A terminal connectable to a network (502a), said terminal (504) being adapted to support applications and/or middleware entities to automatically discover (S0a) services offered by said network (502a), network topology changes and/or users'"'"' presence in order to execute (S0b) a user-defined set of actions (214) upon reception of event notification messages indicating the availability of specific services hosted on said terminal (504), the presence of other terminals interconnected via said network (502a) or the presence of a user operating one of said terminals whenever a number of predefined triggering conditions (204) for triggering the execution of an action (214) that is used to control these services is met,

wherein said terminal (504) comprises a middleware entity (110′

) having

means (108) for creating (S1) bindings (206) between triggering conditions (204) and profiles (210) by assisting users to select triggering conditions (204), select and/or create profiles (210) and associate each triggering condition (204) with at least one action (214) from a selected or created profile (210) and

a core processing unit (110) for managing (S2a) the activation of a binding (206), in particular for an association of a given profile (210) with given triggering conditions (204), by leveraging (S2a′

) the services of said binding creation means (108) or by allowing (S2a″

) applications to directly install said bindings (206) by using a specified application programming interface (API), for monitoring (S2b) the occurrence of triggering conditions belonging to active bindings (206), for evaluating (S2c) guard conditions for fine-grained control, and for executing (S2d) said actions (214) upon reception of event notification messages indicating any met triggering conditions (204).

2. A terminal according to claim 1, characterized by

an Event Service system (112) to support the middleware entity (110′

) evaluating (S3) complex triggering conditions (204) modeled as individual or correlated events whose notifications the middleware entity (110′

) computes and registers with said Event Service system (112), whereby said event notification messages are locally and/or remotely generated.

3. A terminal according to claim 1, characterized by

a Network Information Engine (NIE) for detecting (S4a) events concerning the discovery of said services and/or other terminals within a specified radius around the terminal (504) hosting the middleware entity (110′

).

4. A terminal according to claim 1, characterized by

a Person Identification Unit (PIU) for detecting (S4b) events concerning the discovery of users participating in communication via said network (502a) within said radius around said terminal (504).

5. A terminal according to anyone of the claims 1 to 4claim 1, characterized by

a dynamically configurable context processing system (114) with an integrated module (107) for correlating (S6d1) events generated by at least one event producer, which is applied on incoming event notification messages to enhance and/or refine the data being delivered to the core processing unit (110).

6. A terminal according to claim 1, characterized by

a dynamically configurable context processing system (114) with an integrated module (107) for correlating (S6d1) events generated by at least one event producer, which is applied to sensed context data in order to provide further information to compute triggering conditions (204).

7. A terminal according to claim 1, characterized by

an external processing unit (116) capable of interpreting a scripting language of choice for delegating (S5b) complex profile specifications to said processing unit (116) in order to allow (S5b′

) said middleware entity (110′

) using a simple profile specification language.

8. A terminal according to claim 7, characterized in that

said external processing unit (116) comprises an internal application programming interface for realizing (S5a) a remote procedure call (RPC) towards a remote target service transparent to the user and agnostic of the actual pluggable RPC protocol used by abstracting out the syntax required by the applied RPC protocol.

9. A method for supporting applications and/or middleware entities (110′

) to automatically discover (S0a) services offered by nodes of an ad-hoc network (502a), network topology changes and/or users'"'"' presence in order to execute (S0b) a user-defined set of actions (214) collected in a profile (210) upon reception of event notification messages indicating the availability of specific services hosted on a mobile terminal (504) and/or other mobile terminals interconnected via said ad-hoc network (502a) whenever a number of predefined triggering conditions (204) for triggering the execution of an action (214) that is used to request, activate, control and/or deactivate these services is met on behalf of said applications and/or said middleware entities (110′

),

said method comprising the following steps;

creating (S1) bindings (206) between triggering conditions (204) and profiles (210) by assisting users to select triggering conditions (204), select and/or create profiles (210) and associate each selected triggering condition (204) with at least one action (214) from a selected or created profile (210),

managing (S2a) the activation of a binding (206), in particular for an association of a given profile (210) with given triggering conditions (204), by leveraging (S2a′

) the services of said binding creation means (108) or by allowing (S2a″

) applications to directly install said bindings (206) by using a specified application programming interface (API),

monitoring (S2b) the occurrence of triggering conditions which belong to active bindings (206),

evaluating (S2c) guard conditions for fine-grained control, and

executing (S2d) said actions (214) upon reception of event notification messages indicating any met triggering conditions (204).

10. A method according to claim 9,

characterized by the following steps:

allowing (S6a) event consumers to register for classes of events or specific events generated by specific event producers,

allowing (S6b) event consumers to register for complex classes of events by correlating (S6b1) events generated by at least one event producer and monitoring (S6b2) the occurrence of correlated events,

preprocessing (S6c) event notification messages indicating the availability of specific services by allowing event consumers to specify at registration time which services are of interest to them,

forwarding (S6d) these event notification messages only to registered event consumers who are interested in at least one class of events and/or event notification messages generated by specific event producers,

accessing (S6e) user-defined sets of actions (214) from a distributed database that holds a multiplicity of profiles (210) containing actions for requesting, activating, controlling and deactivating said services, respectively, and

executing (S6f) these actions (214).

11. A method according to claim 9, said method being characterized by the step of

coupling (S7a) new associations between triggering conditions (204) and specified profiles (210) by activating (S7a′

) said bindings (206).

12. A method according to claim 9, said method being characterized by the step of

decoupling (S7b) installed associations between triggering conditions (204) and specified profiles (210) by deactivating (S7b′

) said bindings (206).

13. A method according to claim 10, 11 or 12,

said method being characterized by the step of

reusing (S8) recursively specified profiles (210) and triggering conditions (204) by activating (S8′

) installed bindings (206) between said profiles (210) and said triggering conditions (204).

14. A method according to claim 10, 11, 12 or 13,

said method being characterized by the step of

applying (S9) profiles (210) specified on user level and profiles (210) specified on service provider level to address different expertise levels of users such that non-expert users do not need to know the exact sequence of actions (214) that have to be taken upon the occurrence of a certain event in order to achieve a desired effect.

15. A method according to claim 10, 11, 12 or 13,

said method being characterized by the step of

statically retrieving (S10a) information about interface definitions of remote devices offering said services and profiles (210) specified on service provider level from a local or remote persistent profile library whose updates can be downloaded from a server connected to said network (502a).

16. A method according to claim 10, 11, 12 or 13,

said method being characterized by the step of

dynamically retrieving (S10b) proactively disseminated information about interface definitions of remote devices offering said services and profiles (210) specified on service provider level via the Service Discovery Protocol (SDP).

17. A method according to claim 10, 11, 12 or 13,

said method being characterized by the step of

dynamically retrieving (S10c) information about interface definitions of remote devices offering said services and profiles (210) specified on service provider level by querying (S10c′

) these services as soon as they have been discovered—

on the assumption that these services publish such information as a specific attribute.

18. A method according to claim 10, 11, 12 or 13,

said method being characterized by the step of

dynamically retrieving (S10d) information about interface definitions of remote devices offering said services and profiles (210) specified on service provider level by querying (S10d′

) a proxy entity which supports services that run on devices with limited capabilities concerning memory and/or the enforcement of legacy interfaces.

19. A method according to claim 10, 11, 12 or 13,

said method being characterized by the step of

delegating (S5b) complex profile specifications to an external processing unit (116) capable of interpreting a specific scripting language of choice by realizing a remote procedure call (RPC), thus allowing (S5b′

) to use a simple profile specification language which is transparent of the applied RPC protocol.

20. A computer software program product,

implementing a method according to claim 9 when run on a mobile computing device.