Common-sense spatial reasoning for information correlation in pervasive computing

Abstract

The current technological trend depicts a scenario in which space, and more generally the environment in which the computation takes place, represents a key aspect that must be considered in order to improve systems' context awareness, even if the kind of information processed is not only of spatial nature. This article focuses on the notions of "place" and "conceptual spatial relation" to present a formal model of space supporting common-sense spatial reasoning. The model can be viewed as the semantic specification for a hybrid logic, whose formulas represent spatially qualified information. Interesting classes of common-sense spatial models are identified according to the properties of their characteristic relations and an axiomatization of the associated hybrid language is given; a sound and complete tableau-based calculus for these classes of models is provided.