Support for Ad-Hoc applications in ubiquitous computing

Sammanfattning: This thesis presents work within the area of ubiquitous computing, an area based on a vision of computers blending into the background. The work has been done within the EU project PalCom that introduces palpable computing. Palpable computing puts a new perspective on ubiquitous computing, by focusing on human understandability. The thesis goals are to allow for ad-hoc combinations of services and nonpreplanned interaction in ubiquitous computing networks. This is not possible with traditional technologies for network services, which are based on standardization of service interfaces at the domain level. In contrast to those, our approach is based on standardization at a generic level, and on self-describing services. We propose techniques for ad-hoc applications that allow users to inspect and combine services, and to specify their cooperation in assemblies. A key point is that the assembly is external to the services. That makes it possible to adapt to changes in one service, without rewriting the other coordinated services. A framework has been implemented for building services that can be combined into ad-hoc applications, and example scenarios have been tested on top of the framework. A browser tool has been built for discovering services, for interacting with them, and for combining them. Finally, discovery and communication protocols for palpable computing have been developed, that support ad-hoc applications.