Dependability in Pervasive Computing: Challenges and Chances

  • Authors:
  • Frank Ortmeier

  • Affiliations:
  • Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg, Germany

  • Venue:
  • Journal of Information Technology Research
  • Year:
  • 2012

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Abstract

In 1988, Marc Weiser was one of the first computer scientists who envisioned that computers would become invisible; that computing power and communication technology would become part of many objects of society's daily life. Many modern systems would not be able without pervasive technology. Today, most such systems might be invisible or wearable, but society is either still aware of them or they only communicate to a limited extent with each other. In the near future many objects of day to day life will be equipped with some kind of computing and communication capability and people won't be aware of it anymore. The great benefit is that they will offer citizens support and guidance in everyday life. For example, most people do not know that nice features like jam prediction and avoidance rely on feedback of the navigation system to some centralized server clusters. These analyze the data and thus predict possible traffic jams. Although, dependability issues most often form rigid limits. Because the systems are so smoothly integrated into normal life, they are expected to be robust against intended manipulations to guarantee functional requirements and/or to be traceable and understandable for the human user. In addition, the adaptive nature of many Pervasive Computing systems makes them very difficult to analyze and predict.