LOCCAM - loosely coupled context acquisition middleware

Sensors of all kinds are being integrated with mobile and portable devices (tablets, smartphones). This opens up the possibility of context-aware applications to effectively be able to adapt their behavior, user interfaces and content according to the current user's situation. Frequently, context-aware applications require an infrastructure for acquisition, aggregation and reasoning of contextual information. However, existing context management infrastructures are not always appropriated to the heterogeneous and particular environment of mobile devices. In this paper, we present a context management middleware called LoCCAM (Loosely Coupled Context Acquisition Middeware) to provide self-adaptive acquisition of contextual information. It can execute both locally, on a single device, or distributed among nearby devices. The middleware proposes a model for publication, and notification of contextual information based on tuple spaces. As consequence, it offers a lower coupling among applications and the context acquisition layer. In this paper, we also present a performance evaluation of the adaptation mechanism.