M-Zones - Smart Spaces for an intelligent world

By: Rob O'Connor

Whenever I mention that I work with TSSG to people around Waterford, I usually get a standard response - "Yeah, I've heard of the TSSG, but what do you actually do?" Rather than going into technical (and boring!) details, I just tell them about one of our projects. Explaining something by example is generally the best way of illustrating a concept, so usually they go away with some idea of what goes on out here. In accordance with that methodology, in this article I will attempt to give a broad overview of Smart Space technology and the M-Zones project that is running here at the TSSG.

"It is 7am and Eoin's personal digital assistant (PDA) broadcasts instructions to Eoin's smart pyjama to wake him without making any noise so as to not to wake up his wife. After being woken, Eoin gets up and makes his way to the bathroom. While Eoin gets ready, his PDA broadcasts messages to the coffee machine and the toaster in order to have his breakfast ready when he comes down to the kitchen. After getting dressed, Eoin goes down to the kitchen to find coffee and toast ready. In the meantime, his PDA has wirelessly downloaded the latest business e-mail and compiled today's appointments and to-do list ready for viewing on the kitchen's Skypad. After breakfast, he gets into his car to drive to work. Eoin's car scans the traffic reports to see if there are any delays on his usual route to the office. The car informs Eoin of an accident up ahead and suggests an alternate route to save time"

Ubiquitous Computing; Pervasive Computing; Smart Spaces - these are all terms used to describe the strongly emerging trend in Information Technology towards highly dynamic, heterogeneous, computing environments. The basic premise behind Smart Spaces is that areas exist that have knowledge or information about their environment and surroundings and can deliver dynamic services based on a contextual understanding. As computing power increases, hardware size decreases and programming techniques become more accessible, the potential for truly mobile computing is growing. Within Smart Spaces everything has the possibility of being a computer, as can be seen from the short scenario outlining Eoin's day. Pervasive Computing is about creating such technologies and infrastructures and developing the devices and services that will deliver this ubiquitous computing experience.

M-Zones is a Higher Education Authority (HEA) funded project running at the TSSG here in WIT, in conjunction with Trinity College Dublin and Cork Institute of Technology, to undertake research into management infrastructures that enable collaboration and management between and within Smart Spaces. Across the globe, there are numerous research centres developing technologies that implement Smart Space ideologies. With many prototype environments being deployed across various test locations, one aspect of pervasive computing is now identified as being of critical importance - how will all these systems work together? This is where M-Zones comes in. The goals of the project are:

* To develop technology that aids in the management of people, devices and smart space infrastructures
* To develop management and control systems for integrating multiple smart spaces

With these objectives realised, users will be able to migrate seamlessly between smart spaces. People will be able to move from their smart home, to their smart office, to the smart shop and have a range of services available to them, without requiring any technical effort on their part. As Pervasive Computing moves to the forefront of cutting edge technologies, the M-Zones project is establishing itself as a world leader in Smart Space Management Technology. For more information regarding the M-Zones project, please visit www.m-zones.org. For information on other TSSG projects, visit www.tssg.org/projects.htm