Prospective Research for Brussels (PRFB) Projects are one-man projects funded by the Institute for the encouragement of Scientific Research and Innovation of Brussels IWOIB/IRSIB. These projects aim to support PhD students or graduated researchers working on projects contributing to the development of the Brussels-Capital Region. What follows is the list of PRFB in the context of Ambient & Context Oriented Programming.

• Project Type: Profile A
• Duration: 01/01/2008 - 12/12/2011
• Promotor: Theo D'Hondt
• Researcher: Elisa Gonzalez Boix
• Project website

Three hardware phenomena are currently radically affecting the way we deal with computers and the software that runs on them. First, there is the ubiquitous computing phenomenon which involves the presence of computing power in everyday life objects like wrist watches and cars. Second, there is the miniaturisation phenomenon that makes computers, phones and PDAs blend entirely. This allows users to move about freely. Third, there is the wireless networking phenomenon which allows all these computing devices to exchange information without hampering user mobility. These three phenomena lead to a near future where people are surrounded by countless networked computing devices that provide them with radically new ways of interacting with each other and with the world that surrounds them. Technically, the wirelessly connected mobile devices form mobile ad hoc networks.

Scalable software engineering models and programming language abstractions that can cope with the specific problems arising from these hardware phenomena inherent mobile ad hoc networks are lacking. For instance, using contemporary middleware technology, exchanging information between two devices (e.g. sending a message) requires about a page of Java code. Needless to say, this renders these techniques unscalable for the construction of complex applications. This research proposal is built on two main pillars: First, we aim to come up with a set of simple programming abstractions that allow developers to tackle the complexities inherent to writing software for mobile ad hoc networks. Second, we propose to validate our research by conducting a city-wide experiment in Brussels that shows the applicability of our results in order to come up with innovative applications for mobile ad-hoc networks. The result of our research will consist of a prototypical technological platform along with a number of experimental applications that illustrate how this technology can enhance the mobility of citizens in a metropolitan area such as the Brussels Region.