Name: Saba Niaz

ID: ms150200232
MSCS: 2nd Semester

CS710 Mobile and pervasive Computing

Assignment No.1

Question No.1. Distributed and Mobile computing are the

two main contributing domains to the pervasive
computing. But in order to practically comprehend
pervasive computing, there is need to overcome some
complex and difficult design and implementation issues.
You are required to identify and discuss at least six such a
problems.
Answer to Question No.1
Pervasive computing represents a major evolutionary step in a line of work dating back to the
mid-1970. Two distinct earlier steps in this evolution are distributed systems and mobile
computing. Some of the technical problems in pervasive computing correspond to problems
already identified and studied earlier in the evolution. In some of those cases, existing solutions
apply directly; in other cases, the demands of pervasive computing are sufficiently different that
new solutions have to be sought. There are also new problems introduced by pervasive
computing that have no obvious mapping to problems studied earlier. Research problems in
pervasive computing relate to those problems that are in mobile computing and distributed
systems, the solution of many previously-encountered problems becomes more complex. The
problems are listed below:

Remote communication
Fault tolerance
Remote information access
Distributed security encryption (mutual authentication)
Mobile networking
Mobile information access
Adaptive applications
Energy-aware systems
Masking Uneven Conditions
Location sensitivity
Authentication
Security
Switching process
Scalability
Linking

Name: Saba Niaz

ID: ms150200232
MSCS: 2nd Semester

1) Security:
Security includes encryption-based mutual authentication and privacy. Privacy is already a
thorny problem in pervasive computing. Mechanisms such as location tracking, smart spaces,
and use of surrogates monitor user actions on an almost continuous basis. As a user becomes
more dependent on a pervasive computing system, it becomes more knowledgeable about that
users movements, behavior patterns and habits. Exploiting this information is critical to
successful pro-activity and self-tuning.
2) Authentication:
It is also a problem of pervasive computing. Mutual Authentication is a security feature in which
a client process must prove its identity to a server, and the server must prove its identity to the
client, before any application traffic is sent over the client-to-server connection.
3) Scalability:
Like the inverse square laws of nature, good system design has to achieve scalability by severely
reducing interactions between distant entities.
Another problem of pervasive computing is localized scalability. As smart space growing in
sophistication, the intensity of interactions between userss personal computing space and his
surroundings increases. This has severe bandwidth, energy and distraction implications for a
wireless mobile user. The presence of multiple users will further complicate this problem.
Scalability, in the broadest sense, is thus a critical problem in pervasive computing.
4) Masking Uneven Conditions:
Another problem in pervasive computing is the development of techniques for masking uneven
conditioning of environments. The rate of penetration of pervasive computing technology into
the infrastructure will vary considerably depending on many non-technical factors such as
organizational structure, economics and business models.
5) Invisibility:
The second thrust is invisibility. The ideal expressed by Weiser is complete disappearance of
pervasive computing technology from a users consciousness. There exits huge differences in the
smartness of different environments. The large dynamic range of smartness can be jarring to
a user, detracting from the goal of making pervasive computing technology invisible. Because of
differences in these capabilities from one device to another, the view component of an
application will have to be rewritten for each device.
6) Linking:

Name: Saba Niaz

ID: ms150200232
MSCS: 2nd Semester

The link between what is measured in real world and what is deduced about the real world from
that measurement might be incorrect. These application execute in a dynamic environment that
supports multiple levels of connectivity so it is matter of worry about dynamically varying the
partitioning of the application between the various connectivity scenarios.

It is very much more difficult to design and implement a pervasive computing system than a
simple distributed system of comparable robustness and maturity.

Question No. 2. Read the research paper titled Toward a

Ubiquitous Smart Space Design Framework. You are
required to write the summary (a paragraph at most 12
lines) of this paper. This should include the following:
1. Why the proposed framework is needed
2. Key essentials of the presented framework
Answer to Question No.2:
In this paper a design framework is presented for integrating the various
perspectives and major investigation aspects of ubiquitous smart spaces.
Technological issues of ubiquitous smart spaces are not identified, but focus
on design principles in developing a ubiquitous smart space.
1) Due to the lack of a design framework, most researchers create a smart
space in a laboratory setting simply for demonstrating technologies without
considering the inter-relationship among humans, lives, and technologies.
More effort is needed in developing an interdisciplinary design framework
that articulates various viewpoints on ubiquitous computing technologies,
while emphasizing the potential applications of smart spaces to transform
our built environments.
2) To integrate ubiquitous computing into smart spaces, a conceptual
framework is developed that addresses general criteria regarding the
multiple disciplines of ubiquitous computing. The design framework and the
implementation of the prototypes may be carried out toward the smart space of the future.

Name: Saba Niaz

ID: ms150200232
MSCS: 2nd Semester

Question No. 3. Read the research paper titled Mobile &

Pervasive Computing Software Architectures of Pervasive
Systems. You are required to write the summary (a
paragraph at most 12 lines) of this paper which should
include key challenges in software architecture and
research opportunities in software architecture for mobile
and pervasive computing.
Answer to Question No.3
This paper is explored the role of software architecture in the design of mobile and pervasive
systems instead of technical details. The saturation of the world with sensors and microchips
should be a major story and major concern for all designers. The functionality of software
systems is influenced by their structure and layout known as their software architecture. Mobile
devices are unique in terms of settings in which they are used which are ever changing.
Standardization is an issue that crops up in some of the literature on pervasive systems. A
personal aura represents a mobile user as a proxy, when they enter a new environment, the Aura
marshals devices in the local area to support a users current task. In order to achieve this
architectural framework consists of four components, suppliers, task manager, the context
observer and environment manager. AURA does not provide fault tolerance. The overall goals
for researchers should be to encourage interaction between heterogeneous devices to encourage
portability of resources and to promote flexibility of components within software architectures.