A Reference Model for Context-Aware Mobile Services

The integration of communication and computation technologies, the availability of pocket mobile computers, and the widespread penetration of mobile radio access networks will enable a range of new context-aware mobile services to be offered to the users. Research on methods and technologies for the development of such services requires the involvement of experts in several technological domains such as software engineers and radio experts. In order to enable the development of integrated solutions, the work within these domains should be co-ordinated. Working across technological areas is often difficult. A common model and terminology are required in order to support the unified understanding and formulation of the research issues, and the description of problems and solutions. No overall conceptual framework for mobility exists today. Rather different aspects of mobility are addressed in various frameworks that are developed for different domains, and focus is on different types of system and viewpoints. In a similar way that RM-ODP has been a valuable framework for distributed processing, we believe that a reference model addressing mobility related issues is needed for enabling a unified way of working and integrating results. This paper is intended as a contribution to such a reference model.