A Logic-Based Foundation for Spatial Relationships in Mobile GIS Environment

Abstract

The mobile computing is a new revolutionary style of technology that enables us to access information anywhere and anytime. Mobile GIS as an integrating system of mobile computing and some GIS capabilities has fostered a great interest in the GIS field. Although mobile computing has expanded in the past decade, there are still some important constraints the complicate work with a mobile information system. The limited resources in the mobile computing would restrict some features that are available in the traditional computing technology. This chapter attempts to provide a paradigm to treat moving objects in a mobile GIS environment. An idea based on space and time partitioning is suggested. A logic-based framework for representing and reasoning about qualitative spatial relations over moving objects in space and time is proposed. We provide convincing evidence of this theory, by demonstrating how it can provide a framework model of topological relations in space and time. The expressivity power of the proposed framework is shown with some new topological relationships between moving objects and describing the coaching problem in a mobile environment. The latter finds its application in RoboCup championship and battlefield, as well.