Abstract:
This project presents a novel concept of active spaces in physical outdoor environment
like a metropolitan city. The on- going research in “Active Spaces” at University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has been extended. The project proposes to extend the
boundaries of an Active Space from an indoor environment to a metropolitan level (i.e.
city, district or country level) and terms this innovative concept a “Metropolitan Active
Space (MAS)”. This environment- aware module informs mobile users of the nearest
places of interest. These may include business advertisements, and utility services such as
ATM, gas stations, mosques, schools, colleges, and banks. While their mobile assets
roam about in the city; the online system notifies the owners of the mobile assets of their
surroundings in a context- aware fashion. Besides this, the project also focuses on the
design and implementation of a web- based system to track and manage mobile assets in
a real- time environment. Tracking mobile assets such as laptops, wheel chairs, mobile
phones, luggage etc in addition to automobiles has become a necessity in today’s insecure
world rather than a luxury. Being an entirely web- based solution, it relieves the users of
being limited to a particular desktop machine where the software is installed. Only opensource
tools and technologies have been used in this project. Use of expensive and
licensed GIS softwares has been avoided. Thus the overall system is in compliance with
the spirit of pervasive computing and finds manifold applications in the tracking and
GSM industry.
