CRUMPET Creation of user - friendly mobile services personalised for tourism

In this Deliverable we describe the nomadic application support implementation, which is an agent-based middleware providing means for building adaptive applications for nomadic users in CRUMPET. The overall architecture of the nomadic application support in CRUMPET consists of two main entities: the mobile device, which in CRUMPET is Compaq iPAQ running Linux operating system, and the CRUMPET Access Node. CRUMPET architecture follows the client-mediator-server paradigm where mobile devices are the clients, which are wirelessly connected to the services residing on the fixed network via a CRUMPET Access Node. CRUMPET Access Node is an entity in the fixed network, which hosts a FIPA-OS agent platform being able to mediate agent interactions between the wireless and wired worlds. The implementation consists of two agents on both mobile device and Access Node for monitoring and controlling the wireless link, ontology, and an efficient way for agent communication over the wireless link. The ontology defines a QoS terminology and methods to access the services of monitor and control agents. The efficient way for agent communication consists of a bitefficient encoding of agent messages and a message transport protocol designed for wireless links. Keyword List: multi agents, software agents, FIPA, FIPA-OS, nomadic application Copyright © 2000 2001 by Partners of CRUMPET CRUMPET WP3 Nomadic Application Support 08/13/03 Document ID: 20147/Sonera/DS/D33/A1 Page 2 of 47 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The CRUMPET project uses software agent technology in order to create and deploy various tourismbased services for a mobile audience. This Deliverable specifies the Nomadic Application Support (NAS) implementation in CRUMPET, and especially concentrates on the usage of the NAS implementation and on explaining the differencies between the implementation and the design in the Deliverable 3.1. The overall architecture of the NAS in CRUMPET consists of two main entities: the mobile device (which in CRUMPET will be Compaq iPAQ running Linux operating system) and the CRUMPET Access Node. These two entities are connected through a wireless link. CRUMPET architecture follows the client-mediator-server paradigm where mobile devices are the clients, which are wirelessly connected to the services residing on the fixed network via a CRUMPET Access Node. CRUMPET Access Node is an entity in the fixed network, which hosts a FIPA-OS agent platform being able to mediate agent interactions between the wireless and wired worlds. The implementation described in this Deliverable is based on FIPA Nomadic Application Support specification. The implementation consists of two agents: Monitor Agent and Control Agent. Monitor Agent monitors the Quality of Service (QoS) on the wireless link and is able to both respond to queries about QoS and take in subscriptions for changes in QoS so that when QoS changes the subscribed agents are informed about it. The Control Agent controls the use of the wireless link. It is able both to autonomously establish and shutdown connections based on the QoS on the wireless link, or to establish and shutdown connections on request. The Control Agent provides an ACL interface for other agents to access its services. It also maintains profiles for network access. The Control Agent in CRUMPET supports GSM, HSCSD, WLAN, and GPRS. UMTS will be supported only if there will be a running network and terminals available well before the CRUMPET trials. Deliverable 3.1 specified that the protocol used on the wireless link is WAP as specified by FIPA. Due to the lack of available WAP stack implementations we decided not to support WAP. Instead, we designed and implemented our own message transport protocol to be used on the wireless link. The protocol is written in pure Java, is reliable and is able to recover from disconnections. The ACL messages and message envelopes are encoded bit-efficiently according to the FIPA specifications. In the case of disconnection on the wireless link, the messages are buffered so that when the link is reestablished, the buffered messages are transmitted and the session continues. CRUMPET WP3 Nomadic Application Support 08/13/03 Document ID: 20147/Sonera/DS/D33/A1 Page 3 of 47 Version history Revision Modified by Date Description 0.1 Mikko Laukkanen 08.10.01 Initial version 0.2 Mikko Laukkanen 29.11.01 Almost completely rewritten. 0.3 Mikko Laukkanen 30.11.01 Minor modifications. 0.4 Mikko Laukkanen 07.12.01 Corrected according to comments by Heikki and Heimo. Added some comments. 0.5 Mikko Laukkanen 07.12.01 Initial version for CRUMPET partners. 1.0 Mikko Laukkanen 21.12.01 Corrected according to comments from Barbara and Heimo. Ready to be delivered to EU. CRUMPET WP3 Nomadic Application Support 08/13/03 Document ID: 20147/Sonera/DS/D33/A1 Page 4 of 47 ABBREVIATIONS ACC Agent Communication Channel ACL Agent Communication Language AMS Agent Management System AWT Abstract Windowing Toolkit BE Bit-efficient CA Control Agent CAN CRUMPET Access Node CM Congestion Manager CORBA Common Object Request Broker Architecture DF Directory Facilitator FIPA Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents FIPA-OS FIPA-Open Source GPRS General Packet Radio Service GSM Global System for Mobile Communications GUI Graphical User Interface HSCSD High Speed Circuit Switched Data HTTP Hypertext Transfer Protocol IIOP Interoperable Inter-ORB Protocol IMTS Intra-platform Message Transport Service ISP Internet Service Provider J2ME Java 2 Micro Edition J2SE Java 2 Standard Edition JDK Java Development Kit JINI Java Intelligent Network Infrastructure JNI Java Native Interface JVM Java Virtual Machine LAN Local Area Network MA Monitor Agent MBS Message Buffering Service MD Mobile Device MTC Message Transport Connection MTP Message Transport Protocol MTS Message Transport Service NAS Nomadic Application Support NAT Network Address Transformation OMG Object Management Group ORB Object Request Broker PCMCIA PC Memory Card International Association PDA Personal Digital Assistant PDU Protocol Data Unit PJava Personal Java PP Presentation Performer PPP Point-to-Point-Protocol QoS Quality of Service RMI Remote Method Invocation SL Semantic Language UML Unified Modelling Language UMTS Universal Mobile Telecommunications Systems VM Virtual Machine WAE Wireless Application Environment WAP Wireless Access Protocol WDP Wireless Datagram Protocol WLAN Wireless Local Area Network WMTP Wireless Message Transport Protocol WSP Wireless Session Protocol WTP Wireless Transaction Protocol XML Extensible Mark-up Language CRUMPET WP3 Nomadic Application Support 08/13/03 Document ID: 20147/Sonera/DS/D33/A1 Page 5 of 47 GLOSSARY Access Point Access Point provides wireless access to the CRUMPET Access Node. Agent shell Agent shell is the basic building block of agents in FIPA-OS that provides services such as message passing, tasks and conversations. AppAgent Any CRUMPET agent other than MA or CA. Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range (up to 10 metres) 2.4GHz wireless connectivity solution allowing a creation of wireless Personal Area Networks (PANs) for data exchange between devices such as notebook and pocket computers. CA Control Agent. Controls the MTC and MTP properties according to the FIPA Nomadic Application Support specification. Content Adaption Service Agent (CASA) CASA takes care of adapting the data coming from fixed network onto the wireless link according to the current QoS of the wireless link. CRUMPET Client Agent CRUMPET User Agent taking care of user interface to the CRUMPET services. CRUMPET Access Node The CRUMPET Access Node is a mediator between the mobile device and the CRUMPET service agents located in the fixed network. CRUMPET Access Node FIPA-OS Full-blown FIPA-OS supporting also WAP MTP. FIPA Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents (FIPA) is an international organisation that aims to standardise interoperable software agent architecture. FIPA-OS FIPA-OS is an open-source software agent platform that complies with the FIPA specifications. IMTS Intra-platform Message Transport Service. IMTS is responsible for internal communication within an agent platform. FIPA does not specify the internal operation of an agent platform. iPAQ Compaq iPAQ is a family of personal devices. In this Deliverable with iPAQ we refer to iPAQ H3600, which is a hand-held computer. IrDA Infrared Data Association. The industry organisation of computer, component, and telecommunications vendors who have established the standards for infrared communication between computers and peripheral devices such as printers. J2ME Java 2 Micro Edition is an effort to provide a modular and scalable architecture for developing portable applications for resource constrained consumer and embedded devices. J2SE Java 2 Standard Edition is the traditional Java application environment. Kaffe Kaffe is a clean room implementation of the PersonalJava specification. CRUMPET WP3 Nomadic Application Support 08/13/03 Document ID: 20147/Sonera/DS/D33/A1 Page 6 of 47 Linux Linux is a Unix-based open source operating system. MA Monitor Agent. Monitors the link properties according to the FIPA Nomadic Application Support specification. MicroFIPA-OS The CRUMPET agent execution environment for small devices that is based on the FIPA-OS agent platform. Micro-MTS Lightweight FIPA-OS MTS designed for small-footprint devices. Mobile Device Mobile device is either a PDA or a laptop computer capable of wireless communication and is used by the end-user for accessing the CRUMPET services. Non-agent apps Any application, which does not use Micro-FIPA-OS nor any other CRUMPET services, but accesses network. Example: Web browser. PJava PersonalJava is a scaled down version of the standard Java 1.1 Virtual Machine (VM) and contains only a subset of the JDK 1.1 APIs. The subset includes Abstract Windowing Toolkit (AWT) with minor changes and classes that provide support for applets and applications. RMI Remote Method Invocation is the Java way of executing distributed remote procedure calls. WAP Gateway WAP gateway is an entity translating requests from the WAP protocol stack to the WWW protocol stack and translating WAP content into compact encoded formats to reduce the size of data over the network. CRUMPET WP3 Nomadic Application Support 08/13/03 Document ID: 20147/Sonera/DS/D33/A1 Page 7 of 47 Table of contents