Mobile Communication Middleware

By: Lekometsa Mokhesi

Anisa Ragalo

Supervisor:

Ken Macgregor

Presentation Structure

I Lekometsa will do: Introduction Project Description Questions Tackled

Anisa will continue with: Middleware Description Architecture Some Design Challenges

And in conclusion Risks Timeline

Introduction

Computing is going mobile and ubiquitous. We are reaching a situation where an increasing number of applications and services are available for mobile users.

In the ubiquitous paradigm, the user can access services anywhere, at any time, and with any terminal device he or she desires to use.

Challenges

Ubiquitous systems are highly dynamic – as the user is mobile, the set of available resources keeps changing all the time.

Thus, ubiquitous applications introduce great challenges to application developers, especially when resource limited mobile devices are in question.

Project Description

Communication between mobile devices and other mobile devices or servers, currently requires a knowledge of the type of communication required and the appropriate communication protocol.

This has unfortunate results because:– E.g. application which uses one of the SMS protocols

cannot be run using an "Always-on protocol" such as used by GPRS without being changed.

Questions tackled

What is being investigated– Middleware for mobile applications and ubiquity

Importance of the research– Reduce Application developers’ load by

providing Middleware that hides the complexity of the underlying infrastructure.

Eliminate the need to re-write applications in order to run on different infrastructure.

Questions tackled…

Expected results– "Mobile Middleware Toolkit" which provides the

application developer with a series of Application Program Interfaces which can be used irrespective of the underlying communication protocol to be used.

Key success factor– Using a test application and seeing how easily it

can be ported from one protocol to another type of protocol.

Plan of action

Model structure for all protocols (general protocol framework)

Model the handover mechanism i.e. agent and its knowledge base.

Security, sessions requirements

Middleware Description

Lightweight in order to run on resource constrained mobile devices– Should not be computationally expensive– Should use memory optimally

Flexibility- Should cater for a range of applications

Case for Middleware Agent

Information needed to select a protocol - Application quality of service requirements(bandwidth requirements, minimum latency)

- Application security and session requirements

- Available networks

- Mobile device properties(battery power)

- User preferences(pricing)

Case for a Middleware Agent

Mobile environments are highly unpredictable

Combinatorial explosion as to how these variables might occur

Case for Middleware Agent

Hence the middleware should be:• autonomous - It should own its thread of control and, under unpredictable circumstances, it should also able to take decisions;• proactive: The middleware should not only

react in response to external events (above mentioned input) but also exhibit a goal-

directed behaviour and, where appropriate, be able to take initiative.

Proposed Middleware Architecture

Agent Program

Runtime Environment

Mobile Application

Wireless network/wireless protocolGSM/GPRS/UMTS/Bluetooth/WLAN/Infra-red

Knowledge base

Security Layer

Dynamic memory (Agent input) Leko

Anisa

Us

KEY

Design Challenges

• The middleware needs to utilize minimum device resources, bearing in mind the limited capabilities of mobile devices (e.g. low memory, low CPU speed and battery power).

• There is no clarity on how many APIs the middleware should support.

• Session based and non-session based communication have different requirements and hence should be handled differently.

• Ideally the middleware should support switching between protocols when the protocol the application is running on degrades. This imposes a challenge of transferring session data from one protocol to another.

Resources

• 2 cell phones, a PDA and a laptop. These should all be able to operate the following protocols: GSM/GPRS, UMTS, Bluetooth, WLAN and Infra-red. The mobile devices should come with their accompanying USB cables.

• J2ME to write the middleware for the mobile devices• Java Agent Development framework (JADE) to

program the agent. It is J2ME compatible.• Access to GSM/GPRS, UMTS, Bluetooth, WLAN and

Infra-red networks.

Timeline

Testing and Refinement

Modelling phase1.5 months(14/5/07-2/7/07)

Prototype1 month(3/7/07-30/7/07)

Implementation phase1 month(2/8/07-3/3/07)

Thank you

Questions and suggestions??