Ontological characterization and representation of context within smart environments

Contextual information within smart environments varies greatly. Whilst upper-level ontologies for contextual information relating to smart environments have been previously proposed, they have typically only been applicable to specific domains. As such, a wide range of entity names are used, overlooking other important relevant entities. This paper presents a conceptualisation and generation of an upper-level ontology,which encompasses the key factors, deemed important for context within smart environments. These factors include User, Object, Location, Natural Element, Application, Event and Temporal. The use of the model to support high-level context generation is also discussed in the form of an indicative short vignette (an envisaged smart environment)accompanied with the results from a real smart environment implementation (intelligent meeting room).