Building smart appliance integration middleware on the OSGi framework

The number of various kinds of everyday objects that contain embedded computers is increasing due to the popularity of ubiquitous computing. While component-based soft-ware development becomes common in a variety of application domains, ubiquitous computing requires component frameworks that offer more advanced features than the current component frameworks. This paper explores a component framework in the context of a ubiquitous computing system. We designed and implemented a system coordinating various home appliances, called SENCHA. SENCHA is built on the OSGi component framework. Although the framework provides facilities for dynamically changing environments, this paper reveals several problems of the framework in our experience.