© 2004 by British Computer Society
Pervasive Computing on Active Networks
1 Pinium Research Inc., Toronto, Canada 2 Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Toronto, Canada M5S 3G4
Pervasive computing is the next generation computing environment with information and communication technology everywhere, for everyone, at any time. There are many methods proposed to reach the ultimate design goals of pervasive computing. Most of them are still at the hypothesis and early stages. In this paper, an initial investigation has been carried out to use active networks as the operating platforms for pervasive computing. Upon taking advantage of the active network paradigm, which offers flexibility and extensibility within networks, the active pervasive network infrastructure (APNI) framework is proposed. An additional feature known as ‘adaptiveness’ is recommended to work in pervasive computing. Primarily, the integrity of information content can be retained and adapted to available network resources, even if an end user moves to an unfavourable network environment as long as the user approves and accepts appropriate modifications of receiving content. Furthermore, information transfer can be sustained through different extensible mechanisms on the network layer in active networks. As a result, information can be sent through the APNI with low packet loss rate. The functional objectives of proposed designs in the paper have been verified through thorough experiments in an active network prototype.
Received 24 July 2003. Revised 5 February 2004.