The Future of Intelligent Ubiquitous Computing Systems

Young Im Cho

Department of Computer Science,

The University of Suwon, Korea
ycho@suwon.ac.kr

Abstract. Many ubiquitous systems and technologies have been developed as

of now. As known the goal of ubiquitous computing is to achieve the well-
being life. There are four different aspects for achieving ubiquitous computing,
namely, they are within the computing paradigm, technical principle,
application domain and application space. Nowadays, ubiquitous city (U-city) is
the most applicable domain in the world. Therefore, the talk will mainly
introduce and discuss an overview of the U-City idea and the known ubiquitous
computing systems as well as new trends in this field.

Keywords: Ubiquitous computing, intelligent system, smart computing,

ubiquitous city.

1 Introduction
Ubiquitous computing was started in 1984 by Mark Weiser in USA [1]. Ubiquitous
computing is roughly the opposite of virtual reality. Usually, virtual reality puts
people inside a computer-generated world, but ubiquitous computing forces the
computer to live out here in the world with people. Virtual reality is primarily a horse
power problem; ubiquitous computing is a very difficult integration of human factors,
computer science, engineering, and social sciences. Ubiquitous computing is a post-
desktop model of human-computer interaction in which information processing has
been thoroughly integrated into everyday objects and activities.
The core technology of ubiquitous computing is an autonomic collaboration model
for ubiquitous fusion services in ubiquitous computing environment.To do some
action in ubiquitous computing, many elements coordinate to complete such action.
Ubiquitous networking in ubiquitous computing is completed by the collaboration of
many types of networks, city technologies, city sociology and governance.
Therefore, in my talk I will present and the main technologies and applied services
in ubiquitous computing, particularly within the developing aspect of ubiquitous
cities. I will also give more details and explain in examples more about the new
trends of ubiquitous computing at the present time and what is expected to take place
in this area of research in the near future.

2 Ubiquitous Computing Paradigm

Actually, the goal of ubiquitous computing is to make the safety, security and peace
of mind society. The key technology to be a ubiquitous society is ubiquitous sensor
network, in short USN. There are many application areas that use USN, such as home

N. Chaki and A. Cortesi (Eds.): CISIM 2011, CCIS 245, pp. 1–3, 2011.
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011
2 Y.I. Cho

control, health medical care, welfare, hospital, school or education, traffic, culture,
sports, environments, tracking of produce, anti-disaster, city security, etc.
Human will, in an ambient intelligent environment, be surrounded by intelligent
interfaces supported by computing and networking technology that is embedded in
everyday objects such as furniture, clothes, vehicles, roads and smart materials-even
particles of decorative substances like paint. Ambient intelligent is the vision of the
world in which different classes of smart players are proactively assisted by the
environment [2].The environment is able to aware of the smart player’s current
situation and his interact within his environment and of its own current state. And
then the interpretation of those occurrences into smart player’s goals and accordingly
into possible reactions is activated. The translation of the interpreted goal into
strategies to adapt itself to the smart player’s needs is performed in ubiquitous
computing. Ubiquitous Space [2] is the space that objects collaborate seamlessly and
automatically to achieve user’s or community’s goal for supporting u-Society and u-
Life.
To be in intelligent ubiquitous system, there are three technical principles of
ubiquitous space: infrastructure with situation-awareness, system with autonomic
management, service with self-growing intelligence. Already, the mega trend goes
with the ubiquitous scenario according to the suggestions given by Mark Weiser 20
years ago [1].
There are 4 types of viewpoints in ubiquitous computing. In the aspect of
computing paradigm, the technology is changed from static community to automatic
community. In the aspect of technical principle, the technology is changed from
situation aware to self growing. However, in the aspect of application domain, the
technology is changed from healthcare to environment preservation. The fourth
aspect concerns the application space, the technology is changed from home or
building to society.

3 Ubiquitous City and Future Research Themes

Among many application areas, ubiquitous city, in short U-City, is the most
applicable area. U-City is the constructed city by ubiquitous technologies and
paradigm. To be the U-City, there are many ubiquitous services and hybrid
technologies using RFID, USN, IPv6, sensing devices, monitoring, auto-control, real-
time management etc. Usually, U-City is the same as smart city because smart has
intelligent concept.
There are some examples of U-City like the media hub city and cool town in
Singapore, cyber port in Hong Kong, Finland as well as Korea [3].
The U-City application service models are still being developed. I would suggest
some matrix style service model according to the classification by personal life as
well as the classification by land and facilities. The details will be given in my talk at
the conference,
In the future we still need to develop what has already been done so far. The first
theme is the research about the infra structure of U-City such as platform, security,