Agents for Ubiquitous Computing

Abstract

Nowadays, advances in location sensors, wireless communications, and global networking are advancing and deploying the ubiquitous computing vision. Ubiquitous computing aims at making computer use invisible to users. Besides the central role that hardware infrastructure plays in the expansion and penetration of ubiquitous computing, other issues still need to be tackled. In this chapter, we discuss the issue of the value-added of software agents to ubiquitous computing. Indeed, software agents have a role to play such as, for example in coordinating the large number of computing devices, whether fixed or mobile, that will populate ubiquitous computing environments. Most importantly, agents in ubiquitous computing need to be context aware so they can adjust their behavior to different situations. Therefore, new agents engineering approaches are needed.