KR20100100181A - Context-aware module for convergence service enabler in bcn environment - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a context awareness module for a service convergence enabler in a BcN environment that can derive a service suitable for a user's requirements based on various contextual information.

In the BcN environment according to an embodiment of the present invention, the context awareness module for the service convergence enabler recognizes the user's situation through the user's context information, and transmits the service requested by the user to the device. A context awareness module for a service convergence enabler, comprising: a context information provider for providing the context information; An interface engine that converts the contextual information provided from the contextual information provider to generate and request a query; An inference engine that infers the user's situation based on the query input from the interface engine, and determines a service providing method suitable for the user's situation from an ontology; A DB manager for storing the query and the rule for the query input from the interface engine, determining whether the input query is a pre-stored query, and transferring the stored rule to the inference engine if the query is a pre-stored query; A service manager for outputting a driving command for the service providing method determined by the inference engine to provide a service requested by the user to the device; And an information engine for creating a new rule according to the context information based on the new query and delivering it to the DB manager when the query determined by the DB manager is a new query. Save the new rule passed in.

Description

CONTEXT-AWARE MODULE FOR CONVERGENCE SERVICE ENABLER IN BCN ENVIRONMENT} for Service Convergence Enabler

The present invention relates to a context aware module, and more particularly, to a context aware module for a service convergence enabler in a BcN environment.

As network technology develops rapidly and various pieces of information are digitized, the convergence between information is accelerating. In other words, the development of a service convergence environment that can use various services in combination with one device is being actively conducted worldwide.

Korea has established the BcN (Broadcast convergence Network) plan as a nationwide strategy to realize the great integration of telecommunications, broadcasting, and the Internet in the information and telecommunications sector, to continuously upgrade the information infrastructure, and to achieve the completeization of knowledge and information. .

BcN is a next-generation integrated network that integrates telecommunication services such as telecommunications, broadcasting, and the Internet, and ultimately aims to integrate voice and data, wired and wireless integration, and communication and broadcasting.

This BcN environment is implemented through the configuration of an IMS (Ip Multimedia Subsystem) and an Enabler.

IMS is a core component of the BcN environment that uses the existing communication network and integrates wired and wireless networks to perform basic functions for providing application services regardless of platform type in mobile, wired and integrated environments. In addition, IMS performs the basic functions necessary for building an integrated service environment such as ensuring content compatibility between different types of terminals existing on wired and wireless networks.

The enabler is located between the application service layer and the IMS Core, providing a common platform for the application service layer, ensuring ease of development and delivery to content and service providers, and consolidating the network into one. Allows for provision of service. In other words, the enabler complements the IMS core and manages and controls information such as media, voice, and text in terms of service in order to provide an integrated service. In addition, the enabler converts the content into a form suitable for providing a service in consideration of network characteristics and device types, or aims for a standardized open structure, thereby facilitating the production and provision of wired / wireless integrated services.

For example, the enabler may be responsible for signal management, service interworking technology, codec technology, media resource extraction and conversion function, quality of service (QoS) function, context awareness function, and the like.

Among them, the situation recognition function is more important in the mobile communication environment where the needs of users and the surrounding conditions change frequently. In particular, in the service of the next generation mobile communication system, following the advancement of voice, text, and multimedia services, various environmental information collected by sensors and computers ubiquitous everywhere are effectively shared to recognize the situation of the user and the surrounding environment, and As a technology that can provide a service voluntarily based on a variety of information that fits, the situation awareness function is emerging as a more essential technology.

However, the conventional situational cognition technique is at the level of inferring the user's requirements only by the information of the sensor. In other words, the conventional situation recognition technology is processed only through extremely limited information, such as the surrounding environment or the user's location, it is difficult to determine the exact information of the user, it is difficult to derive the service required by the user There is this.

Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a context awareness module for a service convergence enabler in a BcN environment that can derive a service suitable for a user's requirements based on various contextual information.

In order to achieve the above object, the context awareness module for the service convergence enabler in the BcN environment in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention recognizes the user's situation through the user's context information, the service requested by the user to the device A context aware module for a service convergence enabler in a BcN environment, suitably transmitting, comprising: a context information provider for providing the context information; An interface engine that converts the contextual information provided from the contextual information provider to generate and request a query; An inference engine that infers the user's situation based on the query input from the interface engine, and determines a service providing method suitable for the user's situation from an ontology; A DB manager for storing the query and the rule for the query input from the interface engine, determining whether the input query is a pre-stored query, and transferring the stored rule to the inference engine if the query is a pre-stored query; A service manager for outputting a driving command for the service providing method determined by the inference engine to provide a service requested by the user to the device; And when the query determined by the DB manager is a new query, an information engine for creating a new rule based on the situation information and delivering the new rule to the DB manager, wherein the DB manager is the information engine. Store the new rule passed from it.

The interface engine includes a data formatter for converting the contextual information provided from the contextual information provider into Web Ontology Language (OWL); And a query generator / requester for generating and requesting the query based on the converted OWL.

The driving command of the service manager is a driving command for modules configuring a service convergence enabler in the BcN environment.

The contextual information includes profile information for the device.

The ontology includes information on a profile of all services available to the user and a service providing method for the profile.

The information engine includes an information miner for extracting keywords from the contextual information, automatically summarizing the contextual information based on statistics and rules, and automatically classifying contextual information having high similarity among the contextual information.

The DB manager and the information engine store and manage the device information.

According to the present invention, by recognizing and processing the various context information collected, not only can a service integrated in a limited service providing environment such as a specific network or a device can be provided in various network and device environments, but also a personalized service suitable for a user's needs. There is an effect that can be derived.

Other objects and advantages of the present invention in addition to the above object will be apparent from the description of the preferred embodiment of the present invention with reference to the accompanying drawings.

Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2.

Prior to this, terms or words used in the specification and claims should not be construed as having a conventional or dictionary meaning, and the inventors should properly explain the concept of terms in order to best explain their own invention. Based on the principle that can be defined, it should be interpreted as meaning and concept corresponding to the technical idea of the present invention. Therefore, the embodiments described in this specification and the configurations shown in the drawings are merely the most preferred embodiments of the present invention and do not represent all the technical ideas of the present invention. Therefore, It is to be understood that equivalents and modifications are possible.

1 is a diagram illustrating a structure of a service convergence enabler in a BcN environment, and schematically illustrates a position of a context awareness module according to the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 1, the structure of the service convergence enabler includes an application service layer 10, an enabler layer 20, an IMS core layer 30, and an access network layer. Classified as 40.

The application service layer 10 provides various information, communication, and services such as a game, a telephone, a media, an Internet service, a chat, a messenger, and the like.

The enabler layer 20 converts the content into a form suitable for providing a service in consideration of the characteristics of the network and the type of the device, and the context aware module 21 according to the present invention enables the enabler layer 20. ).

The IMS core layer 30 is responsible for tying wired, wireless and broadcast networks such as Ethernet, WCDMA, WiBro, Cable, xDSL, FTTH, etc., and various devices are connected to the network layer 40.

2 is a diagram briefly illustrating a context aware module for a service convergence enabler in a BcN environment according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 2, a context awareness module according to an embodiment of the present invention includes a context information provider (Context I / O Provider) 100, an interface engine 200, a reasoning engine 300. ), A DB manager 400, a service manager 500, and an information engine 600.

First, the contextual information provider 100 provides contextual information for inferring a service providing method. Here, an embodiment of the situation information provided by the situation information provider 100 is described in Table 1.

Contextual Information Classification

Contextual Information Recognition Type
Identity

Your personal information, gender, age, hobbies, interests, etc.
Location

Your location, environment, weather, traffic, accessible antennas,
List of accessible friends by location

Network

The network you are using (VoIP, MVoIP, DMB, CDMA, WiBro), bandwidth, transfer rate, QoS, etc.

Device

Device information such as TV, mobile phone, MP3, PC, memory, computing power, display type, UI, battery information, etc.

Time

User schedule, activity time, service preference time, etc.
Mobility

Device location, speed, and direction
Presence

User's online / offline status

For example, when a user wants to provide a video service to a PDA or a mobile phone, the contextual information provider 100 provides a contextual awareness module with information on an operating system used in the cellular phone, a playable format of a video, a standard and resolution of a display screen, and the like. To provide. In addition, the context information provider 100 provides a data rate of a network used in a mobile phone through a network layer, and provides information about an aspect ratio, a frame number, a file size, and the like, which is information about a video requested by a user through an application service layer. to provide.

Such situation information may be provided based on a profile of information of a device registered by a user when a service request of the user such as the above-described video service request occurs. On the other hand, when a change occurs in the user's environment, such as a user's movement, the situation information that changes according to the environment change, for example, the network transmission rate may be automatically provided.

The interface engine 200 converts context information input from the context information provider 100 into OWL (Web Ontology Language), and generates and requests a query.

The context information is input to the context awareness module through the IMS core layer. Since the IMS core layer is constructed based on the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), the context information is also input as a SIP message. However, in general, the context-aware module expresses the terms and meanings of the concepts derived when modeling the real world in the field of information and communication, and uses OWL that is converted into a form that can be understood and processed by a computer. . Accordingly, the data formatter 210 of the interface engine 200 converts SIP messages, which are subordinate context information, into OWL through the OWL analyzer, and the query generator / requester 220 OWL. Based on the generated query to pass to the inference engine (300).

The inference engine 300 infers the current user's situation based on the input OWL query, and determines a suitable service providing method from the ontology 700.

The ontology 700 is a kind of dictionary that can be conceptualized by mapping knowledge or information existing in the real world into a form of knowledge that can be understood by a computer system or an application. The ontology 700 stores a profile of all services provided to a user and a service providing method according to the profile, thereby providing a necessary service according to a query input during an inference process.

For example, if a user who has a device with a 4: 3 ratio display, a 1 Mbyte transmission rate, and a device capable of playing MMF format video requests a video service to the device, and the service provider provides a file in AVI format at a 16: 9 ratio, Providing normal service to the user device is impossible. However, if the ontology 700 can obtain the information "The video codec and the compression method for the input query is A", the A method can be applied to the 16: 9 video to the 4: 3 display. Through this, it is possible to normally provide the video service requested by the user to the user's device. That is, the ontology 700 stores the service providing method according to the situation information in advance.

Based on the situation model stored in the ontology 700 and the OWL query from the interface engine 200, the inference engine 300 can infer a relationship, and can be inferred based on a rule defined by the developer.

On the other hand, before the inference by the inference engine 300 is determined whether the query is previously stored through the DB manager (400).

The DB manager 400 stores a rule for the input query and determines the input query when the query is input. In detail, the DB manager 400 stores the input query when a new query is input and stores the rule for the corresponding query, while deriving the rule stored for the same query when the pre-stored query is input. In this way, a quick conclusion can be drawn. That is, the DB manager 400 plays a role similar to that of a cookie on the Internet.

In addition, the DB manager 400 effectively represents the information of the device, stores and manages it, avoids redundant storage of data, and performs an efficient update.

The service manager 500 receives the result of the query from the inference engine 300, performs a query response, and drives the service providing method derived from the ontology 700 to be performed in each module of the enabler layer. Command For example, if the result of the codec and the compression method for the input query as described above is A, the module in charge of the codec and the compression in the enabler layer is instructed to perform the method.

When the information that the input query is a new query is transmitted from the DB manager 400, the information engine 600 writes and groups the rules for the user environment based on the information. The information engine 600 uses the DB manager 400 and the inference engine 300 to do this. To pass. The rules stored in the DB manager 400 include the rules created by the information engine 600 in this way.

In addition, the information engine 600 extracts a few important keywords from the context information through the information miner 610, automatically summarizes the context information based on statistics and rules, and captures highly similar context information. Classify automatically. According to the classification information of the information engine 600, data stored in the ontology 700 can be stored for each category.

The information engine 600, together with the DB manager 400, stores and manages device information.

A brief description of an embodiment using a context awareness module according to an embodiment of the present invention shown in FIG. 2 is as follows.

An embodiment to be described herein relates to a series of processes for providing a continuous movie service through various devices owned by user K.

First, in order to use the stream type movie service through a mobile phone on the way to work, user K connects to the WCDMA network with a mobile phone, undergoes a user authentication process in an application server, and then requests a desired movie service.

At this time, the situation information such as K's mobile phone environment, user information, etc. is transmitted to the situation awareness module through the situation information provider 100 from a sensor built in K's mobile phone.

The interface engine 200 generates a query for the context information and delivers it to the inference engine 300, and the inference engine 300 provides a suitable service providing method from the ontology 700 based on the query input from the interface engine 200. Determine.

The DB manager 400 determines whether Mr. K has previously requested the same movie service on the mobile phone, and the information engine 600 prepares a rule for the movie request query and passes it to the inference engine 300, whereby the inference engine ( 300) to derive a suitable service provision method.

Based on the result derived from the inference engine 300, the service manager 500 instructs the corresponding operation to each module of the enabler layer, and accordingly, a stream-type movie service converted to K's mobile phone is provided. .

Thereafter, when Mr. K arrives at the company and stops playing the movie, the interrupt request status information is transmitted to the application server, and the provision of the movie service is stopped, and the information being provided is stored in the application server.

After work, Mr. K reconnects to the application server in order to watch the movie he watched in the morning on his home IPTV, and then goes through the user authentication process. The movie service from one point is transmitted to IPTV.

Those skilled in the art will appreciate that various changes and modifications can be made without departing from the technical spirit of the present invention. Therefore, the technical scope of the present invention should not be limited to the contents described in the detailed description of the specification but should be defined by the claims.

1 illustrates a structure of a service convergence enabler in a BcN environment according to the present invention; and

2 is a diagram briefly illustrating a context aware module for a service convergence enabler in a BcN environment, according to an embodiment of the invention.

<Brief description of symbols for the main parts of the drawings>

10: application service layer 20: enabler layer

21: Situational Awareness Module 30: IMS Core Layer

40: network layer 100: context information provider

200: interface engine 210: data formatter

220: query generation / requester 300: inference engine

400: DB Manager 500: Service Manager

600: Information Engine 610: Minor Information

700: Ontology

Claims (7)

In the context awareness module for the service convergence enabler in the BcN environment, which recognizes the user's situation through the user's context information, and transmits the service requested by the user to the device, A situation information provider for providing the situation information; An interface engine that converts the contextual information provided from the contextual information provider to generate and request a query; An inference engine that infers the user's situation based on the query input from the interface engine, and determines a service providing method suitable for the user's situation from an ontology; A DB manager for storing the query and the rule for the query input from the interface engine, determining whether the input query is a pre-stored query, and transferring the stored rule to the inference engine if the query is a pre-stored query; A service manager for outputting a driving command for the service providing method determined by the inference engine to provide a service requested by the user to the device; And If the query determined by the DB manager is a new query, an information engine for creating a new rule based on the situation information and delivering it to the DB manager based on the new query. Including, And the DB manager stores the new rule transmitted from the information engine. A context awareness module for a service convergence enabler in a BcN environment. The method of claim 1, The interface engine, A data formatter for converting the contextual information provided from the contextual information provider into Web Ontology Language (OWL); And Query generator / requester for generating and requesting the query based on the converted OWL Situational awareness module for the service convergence enabler in a BcN environment, comprising a. The method of claim 1, The driving command of the service manager is a situation recognition module for a service convergence enabler in the BcN environment, characterized in that the drive command for the modules constituting the service convergence enabler in the BcN environment. The method of claim 1, The contextual information module for the service convergence enabler in a BcN environment, characterized in that the context information includes profile information for the device. The method of claim 1, The ontology is a context awareness module for a service convergence enabler in a BcN environment, characterized in that it includes information on the service provision method for the profile and the profile of all services available to the user. The method of claim 1, The information engine includes an information miner for extracting keywords from the contextual information, automatically summarizing the contextual information based on statistics and rules, and automatically classifying contextual information having high similarity among the contextual information. A context aware module for the service convergence enabler in a BcN environment. The method of claim 1, And the DB manager and the information engine store and manage the device information. A context awareness module for a service convergence enabler in a BcN environment.

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