Putting Personal Smart Spaces into Context

The convergence between mobile telecommunications and the Future Internet opened the way for the development of innovative pervasive computing services. The self-improving Personal Smart Spaces (PSSs) are coupling next generation mobile communications facilities with the features provided by the static smart spaces to support a more ubiquitous, mobile, context-aware, and personalised smart space. Addressing the advanced requirements of PSSs regarding the establishment of a robust distributed context management framework is a challenging task. Evaluating such a system is not a straightforward process, especially when it is also based on comparative assessments of its performance, as various existing systems demonstrate different unique characteristics making the quantitative comparisons quite complex and difficult to accomplish. This chapter elaborates on a context modelling and management approach that is suitable for addressing the PSS requirements and provides experimental evaluation evidence regarding its performance.