Context-based conflict management in pervasive platforms

Smart Homes aim to improve the daily lives of the inhabitants by integrating a variety of context-aware applications, generally pertaining to multiple fields and provided by different actors. These applications share the same context and may have to compete for the access to resources in their surroundings. Sharing resources leads to conflicts, particularly if these applications act in contradictory ways or have interfering effects on the environment. Such conflicts can lead to critical situations by putting the home's inhabitants at risk. In this paper, we present a context-based approach to manage conflicts among pervasive applications in smart home environments. Our approach is optimistic and aims to address conflicts at runtime before their undesired effects will occur. This approach is developed and integrated in the iCASA platform as iPOJO components.