Always Fleeting: Indexing Moving Objects

We are witnessing a proliferation of Internet-worked, geo-positioned mobile devices such as smartphones and navigation devices. Likewise, location-related services that target the users of such devices are proliferating. Consequently, server-side infrastructures are needed that are capable of supporting the location-related query and update workloads generated by very large populations of such moving objects. In particular, this talk covers database indexing of continuously changing geographical positions of moving objects. Continuous change entails high index update rates which are necessary to provide accurate, up-to-date query answers. The proposed indexing techniques differ mostly in how the challenge of frequent updates is addressed and which types of queries are supported. The talk gives an overview of research results focusing on the most recent developments and suggesting future challenges.