Pebbles and Urns: A Tangible, Presence-Based Service Delivery Framework

Wireless and pervasive computing research continues to study ways the Internet of Things (IoT)<br />can make lives easier and more productive. Areas of interest include advances in new<br />architectures and frameworks that support large-scale IoT deployments beyond research<br />prototypes, simple and inexpensive human-to-device and device-to-device interfaces, and user<br />decision making support with opportunistic information services.<br /><br />This dissertation investigates the design and implementation of a general-purpose framework<br />upon which IoT and opportunistic computing (OC) systems can be built.<br /><br />The result of this work is Pebbles and Urns (P&U), a casually accessible system designed to<br />deliver information to a person that is pertinent and beneficial to them with respect to their<br />current activity, location and other contexts. P&U is a proximity-based information delivery<br />framework that leverages a simple, inexpensive tangible interface and context-rich, physicallysituated,<br />distributed information repositories. By its proposed use of enforced proximity, local<br />context, and location-specific services, P&U can support the situated interaction between user<br />and place.<br /><br />The P&U framework is based on a layered architecture consisting of an isolated physical<br />communication layer, a data repository supporting opportunistic service composition and<br />delivery, and a controller/interface providing user feedback. Serving as a potential IoT design<br />pattern, P&U application developers can use the framework API\'s and software tools to build<br />and deploy P&U systems.<br /><br />As validation of this work, P&U prototypes are constructed using the framework, API\'s and<br />software tools. The prototypes are based on use cases depicting a person engaged in the day-today<br />activities of attending class, going to the gym and grocery shopping. Performance<br />measurements are performed on the prototypes profiling core components of the framework.<br />Results indicate proper functioning of P&U tangible interfaces, communication connections,<br />service request and delivery, and internal framework operations.<br /><br />Contributions of this research include a general-purpose framework, a simple IoT interface and<br />an opportunistic engine.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph. D.

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Computer Engineering

Department dc:contributor.department

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2013

Author dc:creator

• Plymale, William O.

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Midkiff, Scott F.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Tatar, Deborah Gail
• Silva, Luiz A.
• Tront, Joseph G.
• Martin, Thomas L.

• pervasive computing
• opportunistic
• situated

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

vt_gsexam:318

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/19223