MiRE: A minimal rule engine for context-aware mobile devices

Abstract

Context-aware services have been introduced into mobile devices, such as cellular phones. Context management and rule processing are the key research issues for the resource-limited devices to have context-aware capability. In this paper, we introduce a context-aware rule processing engine, called MiRE (minimal rule engine). The engine implements the minimum cores of the conventional rule processing facilities and some special policies to achieve resource-saving and light-weight inference engine suitable for resource-limited mobile devices. MiRE, as a part of context-aware middleware system, provides a flexible architecture to adopt various context-aware applications while rules and contexts are dynamically registered at run-time. It maintains the amount of context (i.e., facts) and rules to be optimal in order to save computing resources and processing time. Its design strategy allows MiRE to be conveniently equipped into resource-limited context-aware mobile devices. The performance evaluation carried out on a context-aware cellular phone shows the intended efficiency has been well achieved.