Location-aware information retrieval for mobile computing

With the knowledge about their locations, mobile users are able to issue location-dependent queries. Most of existing approaches focus on how to obtain the information about objects within a certain distance to the location of the mobile user. In this paper, we describe techniques for location aware information retrieval to answer more specific queries about surrounding objects such as which room is on my left, right, up and down. We developed a system with applications in building and construction, where the objects of our interests are rooms. The data model for representing building-related spatial data and the query algorithms for the location aware information retrieval are proposed. The implementation of a prototype of the system is described.