Pervasive

Computing
As part of the course
Selected Topics in Computer Science
(CoSc 4181)
4th Year, 2025

Computer Science Department

 Definition
 Pervasive Computing is also called as Ubiquitous
computing(Ubicomp), and it is the new trend toward embedding
everyday objects with microprocessors so that they can
communicate information.
 It refers to the presence of computers in common objects found
all around us so that people are unaware of their presence. All
these devices communicate with each other over wireless
networks without the interaction of the user.
Pervasive computing is a combination of three technologies,
namely:
1. Micro electronic technology:
This technology gives small powerful device and display with low
energy consumption.
2. Digital communication technology:
This technology provides higher bandwidth, higher data transfer
rate at lower costs and with world wide roaming.
3. The Internet standardization:
 Cont…
 Thus, wireless communication, consumer electronics and computer technology
were all merged into one to create a new environment called pervasive computing
environment.
 It helps to access information and render modern administration in areas that do
not have a traditional wire-based computing environment.
 Pervasive computing will provide us with small portable personal assistant devices
having high speed, wireless communication, lower power consumption rate, data
storage in persistent memory, coin sized disk device, small color display video and
speech processing technology.
 Computing: Trend
Size

Number
One Computer for Many One Computer for Many Computer for One
People One Person Person
(Mainframe Computing) (PC Computing) (Pervasive Computing)
 Computing: Evolution

Centralized Distributed Mobile Pervasive

Computing  Computing
 Computin  Computing
g
Mobile Context Awareness
Remote
Networks Mobile Wireless Ad-hoc
Communication Fault
Information Access Networks
Tolerance & availability
Adaptive Applications Smart Sensors &
Remote
Devices
InformationAccess
Research Problems
  

There are different flavors of Computing

Evolution depending on who is looking at it and
the viewing angle.
 Pervasive Computing: Alternative Names
• Ubiquitous Computing (found everywhere at the same time)
• Ambient Computing: involves more than rolling out more
complete and automated ways to collect information about real-
world behaviors.
 Example: Voice assistance, fitness wearable, remote health
monitoring devices, IoT-enabled sensors in agriculture, and
connected retail technology
• Intelligent Computing. Ex: AI, NLP, cybersecurity, deep learning,
and etc
• Invisible Computing Ex: Devices such as Camera, CD players,
watches, cellphones
• Proactive computing: anticipates future environments in which
networked computing
• Autonomic computing: self managing characteristics of distributed
 Pervasive Computing: Vision
Mark Weiser (1952–1999), XEROX PARC,
Computers in the 21 century, Scientific American,
1991.
“In the 21st century the technology
revolution will move into the everyday, the
small and the
invisible…
…The most profound technologies are those
that disappear. They weave themselves into
the
fabrics of everyday life until they are
indistinguishable from it.”
Pervasive Computing: What is it about
According to Mark Weiser

Pervasive computing is about the invisible and

everywhere (every time) computing
● Invisible: tiny, embedded, attachable…
● Everywhere: wireless, dynamically configurable,
remote access, adapting, …

It is about making computers so embedded, so

fitting, so natural that we use them even without
noticing their presence and without thinking about
them.
 Pervasive Computing: Definitions
I. Pervasive computing is a paradigm shift where
technology becomes virtually invisible in our lives.
Instead of having a desk-top or lap-top machine, the
technology we use will be embedded in our
environment.

[Link] computing is the trend

towards increasingly connected computing
devices in the environment, a trend being
brought aboutofby aadvanced electronics,
convergence
technologies and the wireless
Internet. …….
 Pervasive Computing: Definitions
III. Pervasive computing, also called ubiquitous computing, is the growing
trend of embedding computational capability (generally in the form of
microprocessors) into everyday objects to make them effectively
communicate and perform useful tasks in a way that minimizes the end
user's need to interact with computers as computers. Pervasive computing
devices are network-connected and constantly available.

IV. Often considered the successor to mobile computing, ubiquitous computing

generally involves wireless communication and networking technologies,
mobile devices, embedded systems(Automobile, industrial machine, medical
equipment), wearable computers, radio frequency ID (RFID) tags,
middleware and software agents.
 Internet capabilities, voice recognition and artificial intelligence (AI) are
often also included.
 Pervasive Computing: Cont…
VI. Pervasive computing is a combination of three technologies,
namely:
 Micro electronic technology:
This technology gives small powerful device and display with low
energy consumption.
 Digital communication technology:
This technology provides higher bandwidth, higher data transfer rate
at lower costs and with world wide roaming.
 The Internet standardization:
This standardization is done through various standardization bodies
and industry to give the framework for combining all components into
Importance
an interoperable system with security, service and billing systems.
Because pervasive computing systems are capable of collecting,
processing and communicating data, they can adapt to the
data's context and activity. That means, in essence, a network
that can understand its surroundings and improve the human
experience and quality of life.
 Pervasive Computing: Why now?
Computing devices are becoming very tiny, sometimes
invisible, either mobile or embedded and exist in almost
any type of object imaginable.

Computing environment is becoming full of the

increasingly ubiquitous and interconnected computing
devices

Enhanced by a convergence of:

● Advanced electronics (Moor’s low),
● Wireless technologies,
● And the Internet.
Pervasive Computing: Environment
 Pervasive Computing: Environment ...
Office
Hospital Driving

Meeting Teaching

Devices ….. Services

Smart Phone, Car kits, Phone Call, Email, Message,
Wearable, PDAs, … News alert, …
The most precious resource in a computer system is no longer its processor,
memory, disk, or network, but what?
But rather human attention. The aim in Pervasive computing is, therefore:
● minimizing distractions on users’ attention, and
● creating environment that adapts to the user’s context and needs.
Pervasive Computing: the future-Internet of things
Internet (past) when a
user was allowed only to
uses content
Internet (present) a user
is allowed to also create
content (e.g. face book,
wiki, …)
Internet (future) ?
• Read about Siri featured
by iPhone
• Read about Cortana
featured by
Windows
IP for “Everything” with IPv6? “Things” will be allowed to create
and use content

Ability of any social network-able objects to deliver information or accept

input ==>the phenomenon of “Internet of things”
 Mobile and Pervasive Computing

Overlap of Mobile and Pervasive Computing with other Fields (by M.

 Mobile
Computing
Mobile computing resulted from:
● the appearance of laptop computers and wireless LANs in early
1990s led to a research for building a distributed system with
mobile clients.
Mobile computing is characterized by:
● mobile networking (mobile IP, ad hoc protocols, …)
● mobile information access (disconnected
operation, bandwidth-adaptive file access, …)
● adaptive applications (transcoding, adaptive
resource management, …).
● energy saving (energy-aware adaptation, variable-speed
processor scheduling, energy-sensitive
memory management, …).
● location sensitivity (location sensing, location-aware
system, …).
 Mobile Computing …

Among the basic constraints in mobility are:

unpredictable variation in network quality
lowered trust and robustness of mobile elements
limitations on local resources imposed by weight and size
constraints
concern for battery power consumption

 Mobile computing offers the convenience of portability and connectivity,

while ubiquitous computing integrates technology into our surrounding
 Pervasive Computing

Pervasive computing environment is saturated with

computing and communication capability, yet so
gracefully integrated with users that it becomes a
‘‘technology that disappears.’’

Since mobility is an integral part of everyday life,

such a technology must support mobility; otherwise,
a user will be aware of the technology by its absence
when s/he moves.
 Pervasive Computing …

Vision: “The most profound technologies are those

that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric
of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from
it.’’ M. Weiser 1991

By the time, it was a vision too far ahead of its time,

because, the hardware technology needed to achieve
it did not exist. Therefore, the implementation
attempted by Weiser and his colleagues at Xerox
PARC was not successful.
 Pervasive Computing …

Characterized by
● Context Awareness
● Invisibility
● Ad-hoc Networks
● Smart Spaces and Devices
 Pervasive Computing …
Context Awareness

Context-aware computing is an environment in which

applications can discover and take advantage of users’
contextual information.
Users’ context consisting of attributes such as physical
location, physiological state (such as body temperature
and heart rate), emotional state (such as angry,
distressed, or calm), personal history, daily behavioral
patterns, and so on.
Aims to achieve a distraction-free pervasive
computing environment.
 Pervasive Computing …
Invisibility

According to Weiser, it is about a complete

disappearance of pervasive computing technology from
a user’s consciousness. In practice, a reasonable
approximation to this idea is minimal user distraction.

If a pervasive computing environment continuously

meets user expectations and present surprises rarely, it
allows the user to interact almost at a subconscious
level.
 Pervasive Computing …
Ad-hoc Networks

A self-configuring (wireless) network of (mobile)

nodes
without the presence of static infrastructure.
MANET (Mobile ad-hoc network) and WSN
(Wireless sensor network) are areas of interest.
Bluetooth, WiFi, are among the potential
protocols and tools.
 Pervasive Computing …
Smart space
A space may be an enclosed area such as a meeting room
or corridor, or it may be a well-defined open area such as
a university campus, a park, a stadium, etc.

By embedding computing infrastructure into a building

infrastructure, a smart space brings together two worlds
that have been disjoint.
A simple example of this is the automatic adjustment of
heating, cooling and lighting levels in a room based on
occupant’s profile.
 Pervasive Computing …

Example Scenarios

What would it be like to live in a world

with pervasive computing? Let us look at two
scenarios taken from Aura, a pervasive computing
system of the Aura project !
 Pervasive Computing …
Scenario 1: Jane at the airport
Jane is at Gate 23 in the Pittsburgh airport, waiting for her connecting flight. She has
edited many large documents, and would like to use her wireless connection to e-mail
them.
Unfortunately, bandwidth is miserable because many passengers at Gates 22 and 23 are
surfing the web.
Aura observes that at the current bandwidth Jane won’t be able to finish sending her
documents before her flight departs.
Consulting the airport’s network service and flight schedule service, Aura discovers that
wireless bandwidth is excellent at Gate 15, and that there are no departing or
arriving flights at nearby gates for half an hour.
A dialog box pops up on Jane’s screen suggesting that she go to Gate 15, which is only
three minutes away.
Jane accepts Aura’s advice and walks to Gate 15. She watches CNN on a TV until
Aura informs her that it is close to being done with her messages, and that she can start
walking back.
The last message is transmitted during her walk, and she is back at Gate 23 in time for
her
boarding call.
 Pervasive Computing …
Key elements: Scenario 1 – Jane at the airport

User location sensors

Network traffic (at different gates)
Flight schedule
Map/distance (among the
gates) Monitoring (message
transfer)
Communication among devices
Prediction/ Inferencing
Decision Support
 Pervasive Computing …
Scenario 2 - Fred preparing for a meeting
Fred is in his office, preparing for a meeting at which he will give a presentation. The
meeting room is at a ten-minutes walk across the campus. It is time to leave, but Fred is
not quite ready.
He grabs his PDA, a wireless handheld computer, and walks out of the door. Aura
transfers all his work from his desktop to his handheld, and allows him to make his
final edits using voice commands during his walk.
Aura infers where Fred is going from his calendar and the campus location
tracking service. It downloads the presentation to the projection computer, and
warms up the projector.
Fred finishes his edits just before he enters the meeting room. As he walks in, Aura
transfers his final changes to the projection computer.
As the presentation proceeds, Fred is about to display a slide with highly sensitive budget
information. Aura senses that this might be a mistake: the room’s face detection and
recognition capability indicates that there are some unfamiliar faces present.
It therefore warns Fred. Realizing that Aura is right, Fred skips the slide.
He moves on to other topics, leaving the audience impressed by his polished presentation.
 Pervasive Computing …
Key elements: Scenario 2 – Fred preparing for a meeting
User location sensors
User schedule/calendar
Multimodal user
interface Ad-hoc
communication
Knowledge about the content (data
semantics) Faceamong
Communication detection service (sensors)
devices
Prediction/Inferencing
Decision Support
 Pervasive Computing …
Examples Towards Realization of
Pervasive Computing
1. Project iSpace (at Stanford)
2. Project Aura (Carnegie Mellon University)
3. Project Cool Town (at HP Labs)
4. Project Oxygen (At MIT)
5. Project Easy Living (at Microsoft Research)
6. Project SPOT (at Microsoft Research)
7. Project Class Room (at Georgia Tech)
8. Project Smart Home (at Georgia Tech)
9. Project HomeLab (at Philips)
10. Project Hospital of the Future (at Aarhus University,
Denmark)
The End of Chapter One