Network Adaptation in Intelligent Environments

Intelligent environments have been commercially available already over ten years without becoming such a mass product as expected. The expectations of potential users of mentioned solutions have not fulfilled yet due to missing globally accepted standards causing interoperability problems of different hardware and software components, complexity of configuration and use, lack of universal service consideration, and insufficient ROI for private residence owners. Clearly, a stronger emphasis needs to be set on device adaptation, usability and scalability, which can seamlessly accommodate new smart environment services. This paper presents a framework for network adaptation in intelligent environments using OSGi and UPnP technology allowing the uniform and transparent access to devices and services present in the networked environment and supporting the realization of activity spheres across a mixture of heterogeneous networks. The proposed network adaptation framework has been implemented within the ATRACO project and supports an ambient ecology trial hosted in the iSpace in Essex demonstrating a “feeling comfortable with guests” scenario.