Spatial Data Infrastructure: an integrated architecture for Location Based Services

This is a pre-print version of an article published by Geomatics Research Australasia 2002. This version is restricted to staff and students only.Trends in wireless communication towards the development of smaller, faster, cheaper devices are contributing to a radical change in the spatial information user base. With the ability to access information using a mobile phone or a Mobile Internet enabled Personal Digital Assistant, combined with the capability to determine the position of mobile devices, a range of applications known as Location Based Services (LBS) are emerging. These services provide relevant information to users based on the position of their mobile device. This information can be both spatially and non-spatially related, but must be presented in a useful way. The broader issues of LBS, that revolve around enabling a range of users to access spatial information, can be considered under the domain of Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI). Since the SDI components of people, data, access networks, policy and technical standards parallel the issues of LBS, it is proposed that the SDI concept be augmented to support the development and deployment of wireless LBS applications. This paper describes a proposed case study approach for LBS development so as to determine how SDI needs to adapt in order to support these emerging applications