Open Middleware Architecture for the LBS Domain

The combination of position fixing mechanisms with location-dependent, geographical information can offer truly customized personal communication services through the mobile phone or other types of devices. Prompted by the avalanche of technologv advances in the aforementioned areas, in this article we present a generic framework for delivering location-based services (LBS). The framework is capable of providing the full functionality required for delivering LBS, starting from the specification of the service, and covering issues like the deployment and maintenance of services, the service invocation and the final delivery of the produced results to the calling user. The main focus of the article is on the technical specification, the design, and the functionality of the framework However, with the purpose of assessing the proposed architecture, a prototype implementation based on the discussed specifications was built and its performance was evaluated using a series of pilot services.