Reusable framework for location-aware mobile applications

Abstract

A fundamental dilemma in location-aware mobile applications is how to determine their physical location. Because pervasive computing is still immature, and its ubiquitous infrastructure is not set to serve location-aware applications, much research has been conducted in the last few years to use available technologies to determine physical location. This paper describes the definition and implementation of a generic location identification framework which is reusable by most location-aware mobile applications. A review of technologies for location determination leads to the design of a Location Abstract Framework (LAF) to implement different location sensing techniques under a common Application Programming Interface (API). A Java Micro-Edition (J2ME) implementation of LAF using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) based location sensing methods is described. Copyright © 2009 ACM.