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Pervasive Computing is a technology that pervades the users

environment by making use of multiple independent information
devices (both fixed and mobile, homogeneous or heterogeneous)
interconnected seamlessly through wireless or wired computer
communication networks which are aimed to provide a class of
computing / sensory /communication services to a class of users,
preferably transparently and can provide personalized services
while ensuring a fair degree of privacy / non-intrusiveness.
It may also be seen as the as the technology that is a combination of
Personal computing technology and one or more of the following:
Internetworking technology
Invisible computing technology
Wearable computing technology
Mobile Computing Technology
1.1

Elements of Pervasive Computing Systems

Components of Infrastructure for Pervasive Computing include

Mobile computing devices, Fixed computing devices, Multimode RF
Mobile communication infrastructure
<Fixed-to-Mobile and Mobile-to-Fixed communication system
interfaces>,Trust system (security and privacy), Protocol stacks and
Personalized service frameworks.
What should the Infrastructure provide?
Pervasive Computing Infrastructure has to comprise of computing
elements, communicating elements, sensors, actuators, and interface
devices.
Computation to be available widely and freely (not free of cost).
Intermittent connectivity has to be a supported feature due to
physical limitations pertaining to power, cost, bandwidth and
network congestion.

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Introduction

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It has to support placement and location of uniquely identifiable

information tags / track able tags to all devices / entities in the
Pervasive Computing environment.
Users environment must be able to be aware of the users context.
Roaming Environment: An environment that allows connectivity
and communication to the services outside the home zone is called a
Roaming Environment. Some sample devices that may involve
Roaming-based access <fixed / mobile roaming>:
PDAs / Palmtops / Pocket PCs / Cell phones / Smart phones / WAP
Phones
Laptops / Tablet PCs / Notebook PCs
Desktop PCs / Servers / Web TVs
Kiosks
Invisible computing devices / Smart interactive posters
Wearable computers
1.2Pervasive Computing Devices
1.2.1 Basic Aspects
Device Technology for Pervasive Computing include Powerprovisioning
technologies,
Display
technologies,
Memory
technologies, Communication technologies, Processor
technologies, Interfacing technologies, Sensor Technologies and
Authentication Technologies.

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Bluetooth and other choices address small-distance networking

issues and allow intermittent connection.
The infrastructure has to offer seamless connectivity to the devices
/entities / services.

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1.2.2 Technology Aspects

Since many of the devices involved in the pervasive computing

environment may have to be small in size and may have to live on
their battery / power units, consumption of lower power, extension
of power provisioning period etc. assume critical significance. In
addition, prevention from excessive heating also requires attention.
Power requirements can be reduced by several means right from
material selection and chip-level designing to software designing
and communication system designing. Power provisioning
technology including the Battery design technology plays a very
important role in the process.
Batteries as Power Provisioning Devices
Key issue: Size and weight of the batteries versus the power
capacity and price
Bottleneck: Relatively slower advances in the battery technology
compared to those in other fields like display and storage
technologies
Major choices available: Nickel-Cadmium (NiCd: 12-27 hrs.
standby time), Nickel-Metal-Hydride (NiMH: 16-37 hrs. standby
time), Lithium- Ion (Li-ion:21-50 hrs. standby time), LithiumPolymer Cell based batteries (> 60 hrs. standby time, flexible
shapes) etc.
Display Device Technologies
Not all pervasive computing devices need display elements but those
needing them may have a range of different requirements in terms
of:
Display-size
Display-shape
Display-resolution
Display-colour richness
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Low-power Device Technologies

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Display viewing angles to be supported
Display power provisioning constraints
Display refresh rates etc.

Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs)

Active Matrix Displays

Thin Film Transistor Displays (TFTs)

Passive Matrix displays

Single Scan Displays (Colour Super-Twist Nematic: CSTNs)

Dual Scan Displays (Dual Super-Twist Nematic: DSTN)

High-Performance Addressing displays (HPAs)

Light Emitting Diode based Displays (LEDs)
o Organic LED based Displays (OLEDs)
Light-Emitting Polymer based Displays (LEPs)
Chip-on-Glass Displays (CoGs)
Liquid Crystal on Glass Displays (LCoGs)
1.2.3 Connectivity Aspects
Role of communication architectures in pervasiveness
The pervasive computing system needs at least two basic elements
to be pervading everywhere they are required to pervade:
O Computing elements to take care of computational needs; and,
O Communication elements to interconnect these computing
elements either through wires or wirelessly (with / without
mobility).

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Major Display Device Technologies

Cathode Ray Tube based Displays (CRTs)

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From the back-end systems viewpoint, however, due to its sheer

traffic volume, low error rates, better noise immunity and low cost,
the wire line communication based computing still remains an
attractive option.
Therefore, hybrid architectures will possibly continue to exist even
though end users may not be even aware of it. Identifying multitechnology mobile communication architectures of relevance
Several generations
Gradual enhancements
Coexistence & transition

Generations of Wireless Communication Networking Standards

First Generation Global Mobile Radio standard : 1G
O Only voice, No data
Second Generation Global Mobile Radio standard : 2G
oGSM:9.6 Kbps <circuit switched voice / data>
O Enhanced Second Generation Global Mobile Radio standard :
2.5G
GSM-GPRS <combination of circuit and packet switched
voice / data>

GPRS-136: <100Kbps <packet switched>

Third Generation Global Mobile Radio standard: 3G
oCDMA2000,=< 2Mbps <packet switched voice / data>
Fourth Generation Global Mobile Radio standard : 4G (near
future)
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From the end users perspective and in many a practical situations,

the wireless communication based mobile computing is becoming
increasingly important.

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o? 20-40 Mbps <packet switched voice / data>

MSC (Mobile Services Switching Center) acts like a normal

switching node and provides the connection to the fixed networks
(such as the PSTN or ISDN).
HLR (Home Location Register ) contains information of each
subscriber registered in the corresponding GSM network, along
with the current location of the mobile. There is logically one HLR
per GSM network
VLR (Visitor Location Register) contains selected information
from the HLR, necessary for call control and provision of the
subscribed services and each mobile currently located in the
geographical area controlled by the VLR.
EIR (The Equipment Identity Register) is a database that contains
a list of all valid mobile equipment on the network,
AuC (The Authentication Center) is a protected database: secret
key of SIM GSM uses TDMA/FDMA to share the limited radio
spectrum wherein the FDMA part divides frequency of the not more
than 25 MHz B/W into 124 carrier frequencies spaced
200 kHz apart.; and Each of these carrier frequencies is then
divided in time, using a TDMA scheme. GSM is a circuit-switched
digital network.
SGSN (the Serving GPRS Support Node) keeps track of the location
of the mobile within its service area and send/receive packets from
the mobile , passing them on, or receiving them from the GGSN.
GGSN (Gateway GPRS Support Node) converts the GSM packets
into other packet protocols (e.g. IP /X.25) and sends them out into
another network.
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Inside the GSM Network Subsystem

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GPRS users can share the resource (Radio link) which is used only
when users are actually sending or receiving data.

In GPRS, a channel that is 200kHz wide, is divided into 8 separate

data streams, each carrying maximum 20kbps(14.4kbps typical)
whereas in
GSM we use only one channel.
The 3G:
3G Stands for the Third Generation,
Used in the context of new wireless mobile communication systems
/services,
Leverages the progress made in cellular technologies with the
advances made in the Internet-based communication / services and
the fixed wire line communication technologies,
Is a general-purpose communication network / service architecture,
Allows freedom to end users from being aware of location of
request /provision of services,
Puts more emphasis on the services than on the underlying
delivery technologies,
Aims to play a key role in aiding the On-Demand service
paradigm.
Is not a single -technology architecture; instead allows a multitechnology solution.
Processor technologies
Intels SpeedStep processor technology
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GPRS is based on GMSK which is a modulation technique known

as Gaussian minimum-shift keying. It can support a theoretical
upper limit of speed up to 171.2kbps as against the GSM s9.6Kbps.

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Changing the internal clock frequencies

Adapting core voltage to changes in power supply
Switching of selective parts of the CPU cores / CPU on or off
depending on whether the current calculations require them to be
available
Using the reduced the clock rate and voltage of the
processor core while on batteries, leading to significant
power saving.
Switching between these modes is transparent to user and
is usually fast <however, while the system is connected to
external power supply, the full clock rate and core
voltage is available to processor resulting into maximum
performance>
Transmetas Crusoe processor technology
Total number of transistors are reduced in an attempt tosave the
power consumption
Software replaces the functionalities which otherwise
would have been provided in hardware by the eliminated
set of transistors
Software dynamically translates the original instructions
into another set of instruction for the processor
A technology called LongRunTM reduces the power
consumption even more by reducing the processor's
voltage on the fly when processor is idle
Motorolas Dragon Ball processor technology
Deprecated now!
Intels X-Scale processor technology
This is next generation of ARM-processors that have
replaced the Intel StrongARM series

Memory Technologies
Register class elements
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Intels SpeedstepTM technology based processors and their

successors are capable of:

Cache memory elements

Primary Memory elements
oRAM

SRAM

DRAM

Ut-RAM

MRAM

FRAM

MBM
oROM
Secondary Memory
oFlash Disks
oMagnetic Disks
oOptical Disks
oMagento-Optical Storages
oMagentic Tape Storage

1.2

Operating System Aspects

Operating Systems for Pervasive Computing Environments

Types of Operating Systems
O Classification based on location of functionalities:

Centralised OSes

Networked OSes

Distributed OSes
O Support for security through full encryption and certificate
management, secure protocols (HTTPS, SSL and TLS), WIM
framework and certificate-based application installation
o Support for content development options for C++, Java (J2ME)
WAP etc.;
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O Support for variety of user inputs generic input mechanism

supporting full keyboard, 0-9*# (numeric mobile phone keypad),
voice, handwriting recognition and predictive text input.

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Variants of Microsoft Windows

O Windows XP Embedded
O WinCE

Memory management:

Support for protected Virtual Memory Management

(upto 32 MB per process), special heap-support for File
System / Registry / Object Store <max. size of Object
Store:256 MB>

Security:

Support for cryptography with a Crypto Library+

Crypto API, support for SD and Smart Cards

Footprint:

About 400 kb for the OS Core / Kernel

About 3 MB with Kernel + all modules

About 8 MB with Kernel + all modules + MS Word /

PowerPoint / IE etc.

User-interface:

Simple, intuitive, generally consistent, Menu-driven,

Iconic

User management:

Designed for single user support only

Energy-awareness aspects:

Support for energy-saving enabled at the kernel level

Variants of Linux
O ARM -Linux
o BlueCat Embedded Linux
o RT-Linux

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PalmOS
QNX Neutrino

BeOS
Major constraints specific to recognition accuracy of Speech
Recognition Systems as
components of pervasive computing environment:
Resource availability in terms of processing power, memory and
available time for each instance of recognition
Complexity due to isolated and continuous recognition needs,
Secondary storages capability to store required supporting data
affecting dictionary and other data
Context-variance implications
Complexity arising out of Speaker-dependent and Speakerindependent device requirements
Extent of training needed and its regulation
Security and other implications

1.3

Interfacing Aspects

Interfacing technologies
Respective significance of Fitaly, Tegic T9, Octave methods of
keyboards vis--vis traditional QWERTY layout based keyboards /
keypads, in the context of mobile handheld devices:

Fitaly:

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Variants of JavaOS
O JavaOS
O Java for Business

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Merit / Significance: Speeds up input of text, letters

selected as per likely occurrence frequencies and
ensuring minimization of inter-letter travel distance (to
no more than 2 positions), supports 220 ANSI/ISO Latin1 character set, supports accents, available in on-screen
as well as mechanical forms
Demerit: Specific to English languages estimated usage
patterns, needs to be practiced for a while before use,
needs to learn sliding for accents use etc.

Tegic T9:

Merit / Significance: Requires lesser number of

keystrokes for textual input due to support for predictive
text by combining use of dictionary and linguistic rules
embedding, resolution of word-ambiguity is supported
through prompts, available in on-screen as well as
mechanical forms
Demerit: Requires sizeable software support and
computing resources (instruction cycles and memory)

Octave:

Merit / Significance: Commands available to support

multiple language dictionaries, available in on-screen as
well as mechanical forms although second form is more
popular, gesture-based iconic support for certain
insertions, word-recognition supported by dictionary,
ability to resolve stroke-ambiguity with the help of
dictionary
Demerit: Requires sizeable software support and
computing resources (instruction cycles and memory)

Traditional QWERTY:

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Merit / Significance: Simplicity in design and use,

available in on-screen as well as mechanical forms

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Demerit: Requires more space and may be difficult in use

in case of devices with very small form-factor
Major Interfacing technologies:
Navigation technologies
Haptic interfacing technologies
On-screen / Touch-panel technologies
Voice interfacing technologies
Video-interfacing technologies
Handwriting-based interfacing technologies
Hybrid interfacing technologies)

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