A Distributed Event System for Use in Mobile Environments

Abstract

Recent research into the automation of certain tasks within buildings has been shown to provide a better working environment and also has the potential to make buildings more responsive to the needs of the community at large. The name "smart building" is usually applied to such settings. Such an experimental environment is planned for the O?Reilly Institute, Trinity College Dublin. Examples of services that could be provided, include forwarding of calls and e-mail, automatic door opening for people who have been given access permission, management of heating/lighting and tailoring information delivery to the users current context/location. It is envisioned that people within the building will carry a hand held device, which will be their point of access to the building. Using the hand held device, users would be able to access the different services around the O?Reilly building. The services that the users can access will depend on where they are located, and what rights they have to that service. Examples may include printer and terminal access rights. This project proposes the development of a system that will act as the glue between the different services and devices within the smart building. The glue in this case is a distributed event service that has the ability to support mobile devices. The creation of a filtering system whose primary purpose is to reduce the volume of traffic will also be necessary. For example discriminating between the types of e-mail downloaded. The other aspiration of this project is develop it in a manner that can be scalable.