Context addressing using context-aware flooding

Due to the proliferation of small networked mobile devices, the number of (indirectly) interconnected services in pervasive computing environments may grow without bound. The network contains a potentially enormous amount of context aware services that sense, gather and distribute context information. Without a central context repository, or a central server that locates the context information, it is a challenge to address parts of the environment that contain relevant context information. In this paper, we propose a model for addressing context and an algorithm for context gathering and distribution that imposes a virtual structure on the network, that aligns with the actual context information within a pervasive computing environment. Distribution of context uses an adapted form of flooding, that is context aware. Our evaluation shows that the algorithm performs substantially better than bounded flooding, if address accuracy is at least 30%.