3.2 Research Programme Approach

The programme takes an approach that directly supports the development of high-quality individual research while ensuring productive collaboration between researchers. Research Themes will be used to focus research activities along axes where most collaborative synergy can be obtained. Work packages will be used to coordindate the expression and understanding of common concepts and the development and sharing of processes, tools, software and other experimental infrastructure such as implementation testbeds and simulators.

A rolling state of the art survey will capture the management requirements for Smart Spaces and the technological and scientific development that show promise in addressing them. Scenarios will be use to elicit requirements and to focus research activities, including evaluation. Scenarios will be developed with particular focus on the Home, Work and Educational Smart Spaces. The objective is to identify a set of common requirements for each of these Smart Spaces with a view of mapping these requirements to telecommunications management requirements and appropriate management solutions. The objective is the application of best practice from telecommunications management standard solutions for the development of initial management architecture.

A number of scenarios will be developed to support the identification of requirements for inter-domain communication between Smart Space domains. The development of prototype implementations (test beds) is envisaged to gain competence, industry recognition, and identify the standardisation and measurement issues in pervasive computing.

The programme will establish Smart Space test beds at WIT, TCD and CIT. The programme will minimise duplication of effort by developing test-bed resources and resource themes that build on the established expertise within the institutions. The focus of the TCD team will be on Education Smart Spaces and Information Management, WIT will emphasise the management of a Workplace Smart Space and issues associated with performance and security, while the emphasis in CIT will be on the management of wireless communications and Smart-Space in the home. The test beds will be linked providing access to results from each site.

Access to expertise will be shared through the establishment of joint research teams comprising of staff and students from each of the test sites. This will provide shared access to the test-beds and the sharing of expertise across the three locations. It is also proposed that research students from each of the three research centres will perform part of their research work at the other centres.

The work programmes for the test-beds will be developed jointly to ensure maximum coordination between the research centres. A number of joint trials will be planned particularly in the area of inter domain management.