CollaborationBus: An Editor for the Easy Configuration of Ubiquitous Computing Environments

Abstract

Early sensor-based infrastructures were often developed by experts with a thorough knowledge of base technology for sensing information, for processing the captured data, and for adapting the system's behaviour accordingly. In this paper we introduce the CollaborationBus application: a graphical editor that provides abstractions from base technology and thereby allows experts as well as non-experts to configure ubiquitous computing environments. By composing pipelines users can easily specify the information flows from selected sensors, via optional filters for processing the sensor data, to actuators changing the system behaviour according to their wishes. Users can compose pipelines for both home and work environments. An integrated sharing mechanism allows them to share their own compositions and to reuse and build upon others' compositions. Real-time visualisations help them understand the information flows through their pipelines. In this paper we present the concept and implementation of the CollaborationBus application