Software Architecture for the Support of Context Aware Applications

Context Awareness is a relatively new research area that uses context information to improve the operation of applications. These applications are called `context aware'. However, there is no common understanding what context is, and how context can be used to improve the operation of applications. One of the problems that the developer of a context aware application must deal with, is the problem of obtaining context information. A context architecture should relieve the application developer of this problem: it must obtain context information and present it to applications. The objectives of this study are to define the concepts `context` and `context aware`, and to gain insight in how context aware applications use context, in order to determine the requirements of a context architecture. This stud