Formulating device-independent pass-by rendezvous

Developing applications with pass-by communication is usually complex and expensive, since the applications heavily depend on the hardware to detect rendezvous (i.e., proximity) of mobile entities. In order to reduce the complexity and cost of the application development, we propose a device-independent formalization of the pass-by rendezvous of mobile entities in this paper. Specifically, we first define a pass-by rendezvous as a phenomenon, where two mobile entities are closed enough at a certain time. We then derive four properties from the definition to be satisfied within any pass-by systems. The properties allow indirect pass-by rendezvous between mobile entities with different devices. Finally, we apply the proposed method to two different practical systems (Bluetooth Low Energy and GPS). In the case study, we see how the pass-by rendezvous can be implemented in each system, and see how the indirect rendezvous across the two systems can be inferred using the proposed properties.