CASS: A Context-Aware Simulation System for Smart Home

Ubiquitous computing (ubicomp) environments provide access to information and computing resources for users at any time and anywhere. In the approaching ubiquitous ear, many self-adaptive applications are emerging. These can be made to adapt to the environment within which the application operates. Context information is the key to producing self-adaptive applications in ubicomp environments. However, the supporting infrastructure that generates context information can be made dynamically responsive to the environment. Therefore, for the development of self-adaptive applications, it is necessary to demonstrate that valid context information can be created by virtual sensors instead of physical sensors. In this paper we present a context aware simulation system called CASS. In particular, it generates the context information associated with virtual sensors and virtual devices in a smart home domain. By using CASS, the self-adaptive application developer can immediately detect rule conflict in context information and determine optimal sensors and devices in a smart home.