A short description of the MUSIC project

MUSIC is a European project, which will result in an open source platform for the development of an innovative mobile applications and will comprise of the following main components:

• A design methodology for self-adapting applications.

• A distributing system architecture, which provides a solid basis for the design and implementation of self-adapting applications in ubiquitous computing environments.

• A comprehensive open-source software development framework that facilitates the development of self-adapting, reconfigurable software that seamlessly adapts to the highly dynamic user and execution context and maintains a high level of usability and usefulness across the context changes.

• Enhanced modelling languages for the specification of context dependencies and adaptation capabilities, supported by model specification and validation tools.

• Middleware and infrastructure services supporting functionality that is 'commonly' needed in the type of adaptable mobile applications addressed in the project.

• A prototype test and simulation environments, to allow developers to observe and analyse the effects of context changes and adaptation and so be able to carry out adaptation training.

Newcomers start here provides a scenario for MUSIC in action. It is anticipated that the project results will relieve some of the burden from shoulder of software and mobile service providers. The project is adopting an incremental approach to achieve the project objectives.

In addition to the open platform produced by MUSIC, the project aims to deliver:

• A set of models for abstracting context information, allowing for synergistic exploitation of context information shared among peer devices.

• A set of trial service implementations.

• Scientific papers and other publications aimed at the ICT industry, offering insight and practical advice on how to design, develop, deploy and manage self-adapting and context-aware applications that dynamically adapt to changing computing, communication and user needs.

More information

As citizens gets accustomed to the use of mobile services, expectations about which services should be provided, where they should be available and how well they should be adapted to the users’ expectations has become more topical and demanding. However, the current range of mobile devices (e.g. PDAs, smart phones, GPS, etc.) and the variety of infrastructures has exacerbated the challenges in building and maintaining such services in a user-friendly way. Because of that, software developers must deal with an enormous number of issues related to configuration, operations, maintenance and change management in order to produce systems that can dynamically, securely and automatically adapt to public expectations in different scenarios and circumstances.

To address the technical challenges and to promote the development and widespread deployment of innovative mobile applications, MUSIC will:

• develop an open platform for the development of self-adaptive mobile applications, including methods, tools and middleware.
• use the platform to develop trial applications, based on a set of challenging application scenarios.
• use the trial applications to:
• • drive the R&D work of the project;
  • assess the technical quality of project results;
  • promote project concepts and results to the wider IT industry.
• carry out research to produce the conceptual underpinning needed for the platform, including the above-mentioned aspects like context-awareness and adaptability.
• promote standardisation by aligning the work of the project with relevant standards bodies, proposing modifications to existing standards and/or proposing new standards.
• use an Open Source approach for core project results and use this as a key element in the strategy to ensure widespread uptake of the project results.

Research and technology development is focusing on:

• modelling of adaptable software and context dependencies.
• mechanisms for implementing adaptable software for ubiquitous environment.
• automatic adaptation planning and decision making based on exploiting software models at runtime.
• context awareness, including modelling, sensing and reasoning for both user and systems context.
• analysis, simulation, testing and tuning of adaptation-related behaviour and support tools.
• Brochure information is available in Music flyer

Main contact

Project Co-ordinator:

• Geir Horn. SINTEF ICT.
• Tel:   +47 93059335  . Fax: +47 22067787
• email: geir.horn@sintef.no

Project status

Work is progressing in line with the revised Description of Work (DoW).

Getting started

Are you a newcomer to the MUSIC project? A good place to start is MUSIC for beginners.