An ontological context model for representing a situation and the design of an intelligent context-aware middleware

A major challenge of context models is to balance simplicity, generality, usability and extensibility. It is also important that the model be practical and implementable. In pursuit of this goal, this paper proposes a context model, Rover Context Model (RoCoM), structured around four primitives that can be used to represent and model any situation and activity: entities, events, relationships, and activities. It introduces the notion of templates of context for each primitive and describes, albeit briefly, the RoCoM Ontology (RoCoMO). It also describes the design and architecture of an abstract, generic and intelligent context-aware middleware called Rover II. We propose this framework as a solution to address the context problem as a whole, and be usable in many domains. We also illustrate its application with the aid of a context-aware public safety application that is deployed in the UMD campus.