Pervasive Information Community Organization (PICO): A Framework for Internet Services of the Future

University Of Texas At Arlington, Arlington TX

Investigators

Abstract

Pervasive Information Communities Organization (PICO) is a framework to create mission-oriented dynamic communities of software agents that perform tasks on behalf of users and devices. PICO provides automated continual services to improve quality of life, and to utilize resources efficiently by enhancing existing Internet services. PICO enabled Internet will be used effectively in many dynamically changing time-critical applications that demand proactive real-time collaborations among physical devices, software agents, and personnel in heterogeneous environments. The main components of PICO are software entities, called delegents (intelligent delegates) and hardware entities, called camileuns (connected, adaptive, mobile, intelligent, learned, efficient, ubiquitous nodes). The novel features of PICO include: i) creation of mission-oriented dynamic communities of software agents, ii) QoS management for just-in-time communication and proactive collaboration among communities, and iii) adaptability to dynamic environments through context- and location-awareness. As a pervasive computing paradigm, PICO has applications in many domains such as telemedicine, the military, crisis management, and many day-to-day activities. In this project the researchers focus on the design and development of PICO, and investigate its applicability as a platform for distributed collaborations. Through telemedicine applications, the researchers demonstrate the full potential of PICO as an Internet enhancement framework that is not only unique, simple, and versatile, but can also work with current and future hardware/software tools. Specifically, the proposed tasks include: formal specifications, design, and development of PICO architecture; requirements analysis for telemedicine scenario; QoS and resource management; PICO prototype development; and validation, performance evaluation and benchmarking. PICO-enabled pervasive environments will revolutionize the way the Internet is being used, enhance quality of life and promote user-centric applications. The PICO project will result in the training of students in pervasive computing, high quality masters and doctoral theses, and transfer of technology to health care providers, professionals and other researchers.