A multi-layered bigraphical modelling approach for context-aware systems

Abstract

There exist several approaches proposed for building Context-Aware Systems (CAS). However, due to the continually changing environment, the large number of interrelated components, complexity and diversity of application domains make the modelling of context-aware systems a particularly challenging task. To address the increasing complexity of the modelling: i) It is critical to take into account the importance of the environment (operational context); and ii) rely on software engineering concepts such as abstraction and modularity in order to reduce the level of complexity. Also, a context-aware system may require intelligence and autonomy. These naturally lead us to apply intelligent agent-based engineering. This work introduces a formal layered design approach that combines intelligent control of multi-agent systems and bigraph's rigor to model context-aware systems. Bigraphical reactive systems are particularly compelling for their capacity to specify, simultaneously, the physical and logical distribution of system components and their interconnections using two distinct structures; that is: place graph and link graph. While the behaviour and dynamic evolution are expressed using defined reaction rules, and as a last step, the bigraph specifications are coded in the Maude language to allow their execution and the verification of their validity.

Keywords

• Context-aware systems
• Computing methodologies
• Formal modelling
• Multi-agent systems