Research of Gil N. Müller

Interests

Interaction/Coordination in Computing
Mobile/Ubiquitous/Pervasive Computing: Location-Oriented Computing
Design of Programming Languages
Software Architecture

Current Projects

This is an effort towards a model of higher-order interaction to deal with growing interaction complexity in near-future ubiquitous computing systems. The proposed model is suitable both to deal with the design of man-machine interaction systems and the design of machine-machine interaction systems. The model divides interaction into three layers regarding the task, the theme (of a task) and the social structure. The aim is to have a framework for shaping and evaluating tools and methods for ubiquitous computing.

Business

On my business site you find further projects. Currently, I am working on a platform called LocBrowser for organizing information related to location.

Frozen Projects

Interaction-oriented programming (IOP) is a paradigm for implementing reactive and distributed systems. It is based on the notion, that the coordination of the components is better separated from components itself in such systems in order to enhance the modularity and extensibility of system in the whole. IOP is especially supported by the application language LoI ("Language of Interaction").
lightAIR is a Java-based communication system, which offers hierarchical name spaces, asynchronous message passing, group communication, real-time communication, flexible means of message reception, and a decentralized/distributed communication system management.

Former Projects

I was partly involved in the DANTE project. This project provided mobile, dynamic, interactive, multimedia services in the car using DAB (digital audio broadcasting). From another perspective it was also a location-oriented service. The user could retrieve detailed information about a point of interest (like a restaurant) on the map, which contained also the user's position.
I participated in the development of a standard to download Java programs via DAB (digital audio broadcasting). This also includes the possibility to control the DAB receiver and retrieve data from it. The publication is expected for the beginning of 2002 by ETSI. In parallel a test implementation of the standard was realized, which in its final form was running under Windows CE on an Compaq iPAQ PDA.
I-Space ( guide and principles ) is a tool for message-based communication for distributed processes. It provides a simple but flexible interface to inter-process communication. Some of its features: real-time message passing, asynchronous one-to-many communication, message filters and different mechanisms for message reception.
VESAS is a distributed virtual environment for simulation purposes. Simulation is considered as an effect which results from the interactions of multiple actors. Thus the architecture of VESAS focuses on the interactions and not on the participating actors. These interactions are mediated by protocols. The interface of a protocol is characterized by the roles it provides. A role is defined by a series of entry points, which the actor has to fill respectively call. The protocol itself coordinates the flow of control. Up to now, there exist protocols for accessing the (distributed) object data, sensor control and object dynamics.
VICA is an experiment in constructing a semi-autonomous software agent for a dynamic 3D-world. It was motivated by the success of behavior-based architectures for autonomous systems. Thus, it is purely reactive agent consisting of 23 threads. Its task is the control of a virtual camera and (hopefully soon) a virtual recorder for means of observation and navigation. It receives natural-language and GUI instructions which are transformed into commands for the basic layer which generates instructions for the effectors of the camera and the recorder. Recent research is concerned of using a layered architecture to evaluate natural language instructions to keep the system reactive.
AIR is a sort of virtual environment for program development based on the rooms metaphor. The paper linked to this document sketches in one part the user interface to AIR and in the other part that of the programmer which is found to be as important as the other one. There is also a Postscript version of this paper .

Contact

gil.mueller@nexgo.de

Last modified: Tue Aug 27 11:24:30 CEST 2002