FOUNDATION FOR INTELLIGENT PHYSICAL AGENTS

 

 

FIPA Device Ontology Specification

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                

 

© 1996-2002 Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents
http://www.fipa.org/
Geneva, Switzerland

Notice

Use of the technologies described in this specification may infringe patents, copyrights or other intellectual property rights of FIPA Members and non-members. Nothing in this specification should be construed as granting permission to use any of the technologies described. Anyone planning to make use of technology covered by the intellectual property rights of others should first obtain permission from the holder(s) of the rights. FIPA strongly encourages anyone implementing any part of this specification to determine first whether part(s) sought to be implemented are covered by the intellectual property of others, and, if so, to obtain appropriate licenses or other permission from the holder(s) of such intellectual property prior to implementation. This specification is subject to change without notice. Neither FIPA nor any of its Members accept any responsibility whatsoever for damages or liability, direct or consequential, which may result from the use of this specification.

Foreword

The Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents (FIPA) is an international organization that is dedicated to promoting the industry of intelligent agents by openly developing specifications supporting interoperability among agents and agent-based applications. This occurs through open collaboration among its member organizations, which are companies and universities that are active in the field of agents. FIPA makes the results of its activities available to all interested parties and intends to contribute its results to the appropriate formal standards bodies where appropriate.

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Contents

1     Scope. 1

2     Overview. 2

3     Device Ontology. 3

3.1      Object Descriptions. 3

3.1.1      Relationships between Frames. 4

3.1.2      Device Description. 5

3.1.3      Product Info Description. 5

3.1.4      Hardware Description. 6

3.1.5      Connection Type Description. 6

3.1.6      User Interface Description. 7

3.1.7      Screen Description. 7

3.1.8      Resolution Description. 8

3.1.9      Memory Description. 8

3.1.10    Memory Type Description. 8

3.1.11    Software Properties Description. 9

3.2      Function Descriptions. 9

3.2.1      Request Device Information. 9

3.3      Exceptions. 9

3.3.1      Not Understood Exception Propositions. 10

3.3.2      Refusal Exception Propositions. 10

3.3.3      Failure Exception Propositions. 10

4     References. 11

5     Informative Annex A — Profile of a Hypothetical Smart Phone. 12

5.1      Profile Description. 12

5.1.1      SmartPhone xyz. 13

6     Informative Annex B — Examples. 14

6.1      Content Adaptation I 14

6.2      Content Adaptation II 18

6.3      Content Adaptation III 19

6.4      Service Advertisement and Software Updates. 19

7     Informative Annex C — Usage of FIPA Device Ontology through CC/PP. 20

8     Informative Annex D — ChangeLog. 22

8.1      2002/11/01 - version D by TC X2S. 22

8.2      2002/12/03 - version E by FIPA Architecture Board. 22

1         Scope

This document deals with the definition of an ontology for devices. It contains specifications for:

 

·         Defining the properties of devices.

 

Additionally, it provides an example to illustrate the usage of the ontology via a profile of a hypothetical smart phone, an example of using the ontology through CC/PP and other informative examples.

 

2         Overview

The capabilities of different devices are best expressed using some ontology, against which the profiles of those devices are validated. This document contains specifications for a device ontology.

 

Provided that two devices D1 and D2 have a connection, they may exchange device profiles (either directly or through a brokering agency) and acquire a list of services provided by the other device. The list of services may include both hardware and software services, for example: a software component that provides access to a hardware component of the device (such as microphone, headset or GPS service). The profile needs to support the identification of services for various input and output capabilities, such as audio input and output. An informative example of a profile for a hypothetical device is given in Section 5.

 

The fipa-device ontology can be used by agents when communicating about devices. Agents pass profiles of devices to each other and validate them against the fipa-device ontology. The profiles come in handy for example in a situation where memory- or processing-intensive actions take place; agent A1 can ask agent A2 whether device D has enough capabilities to handle some task A1 has in mind. Section 6 gives a set of informative examples showing how profiles based on fipa-device ontology can be exploited.

 

Related work is done both in W3C [CC/PP] and WAP Forum [UAProf]. There is an overlap between the definitions found in those documents and this specification. However, direct references to those specifications are not used here. That is because, unlike the ontology presented in this specification, they rely on specific frameworks and languages, namely RDF and XML. Section 7 gives an informative example on how to use the fipa-device ontology via CC/PP descriptions.

 

3         Device Ontology

3.1        Object Descriptions

This section describes a set of frames that represent the classes of objects in the domain of discourse within the framework of the fipa-device ontology.

 

The following terms are used to describe the objects of the domain:

 

·         Frame. This is the mandatory name of this entity that must be used to represent each instance of this class.

 

·         Ontology. This is the name of the ontology, whose domain of discourse includes the parameters described in the table.

 

·         Parameter. This is the mandatory name of a parameter of this frame.

 

·         Description. This is a natural language description of the semantics of each parameter.

 

·         Presence. This indicates whether each parameter is mandatory or optional.

 

·         Type. This is the type of the values of the parameter: Integer, Word, String, URL, Term, Set or Sequence.

 

·         Reserved Values. This is a list of FIPA-defined constants that can assume values for this parameter.

 

3.1.1          Relationships between Frames

Figure 1 depicts the frames used in this ontology with associations among them.

 

Figure 1: Relationships between Frames in the fipa-device Ontology

 

3.1.2          Device Description

This type of object represents the description that can be used to define the device with its most general properties.

 

Frame Ontology	device fipa-device
Parameter	Description	Presence	Type	Reserved Values
info	General information for the device.	Mandatory	info-description
type	The type(s) of the device. General type(s) of devices like 3G phones, PDA's etc. To be used as a sequence from general to more specific types.	Optional	Sequence of string
agent-compliancy	Capability to host a FIPA-agent platform or participate in a distributed one.	Optional	boolean	true false
hw-properties	List of properties describing the hardware features of the device in question.	Optional	hw-description
sw-properties	List of properties describing the software features of the device in question.	Optional	sw-description

 

3.1.3          Product Info Description

This type of object represents the description that can be used to define the name, vendor and version of some product.

 

Frame Ontology	info-description fipa-device
Parameter	Description	Presence[1]	Type	Reserved Values
name	The name of the product in question.	Optional	string
vendor	The vendor of the product in question.	Optional	string
version	The version of the product in question.	Optional	string

 

3.1.4          Hardware Description

This type of object represents the description that can be used to define the hardware capabilities of a given device.

 

Frame Ontology	hw-description fipa-device
Parameter	Description	Presence[2]	Type	Reserved Values
connection	The type of the connection the device uses.	Optional	Set of connection-description
ui	List of the user interfaces that the device offers.	Optional	Set of ui-description
memory	The amount of memory that the device has.	Optional	Set of memory-description
cpu	The type of the central processing unit that the device has.	Optional	Set of String

 

3.1.5          Connection Type Description

This type of object represents the description that can be used to define the connection-related details of a given device.

 

Frame Ontology	connection-description fipa-device
Parameter	Description	Presence[3]	Type	Reserved Values
information	General information for the connection.	Optional	info-description
qos-information	Detailed information about the Quality of Service of this connection type	Optional	qos[4]

 

3.1.6          User Interface Description

This type of object represents the description that can be used to define the user interface(s) of a given device.

 

Frame Ontology	ui-description fipa-device
Parameter	Description	Presence[5]	Type	Reserved Values
screen	Information characterizing the screen of the device.	Optional	screen-description
audio-input	Specifies whether the device in question is capable of receiving audio input.	Optional	boolean	true false
audio-output	Specifies whether the device in question is capable of producing audio output.	Optional	boolean	true false

 

3.1.7          Screen Description

This type of object represents the description that can be used to define the screen of a given device.

 

Frame Ontology	screen-description fipa-device
Parameter	Description	Presence[6]	Type	Reserved Values
width	The width of the screen. This value must be positive.	Optional	integer
height	The height of the screen. This value must be positive.	Optional	integer
unit	The unit for the width and height parameters of this frame.	Optional	string	mm cm inch
resolution	The resolution description for the screen.	Optional	Set of resolution-description
color	Has the value true if the device has a color screen; false if it has a monochrome screen.	Optional	boolean	true false

 

3.1.8          Resolution Description

This type of object represents the description that can be used to define the resolution details of a given display.

 

Frame Ontology	resolution-description fipa-device
Parameter	Description	Presence[7]	Type	Reserved Values
width	Number of resolution units horizontally. This value must be positive.	Optional	integer
height	Number of resolution units vertically. This value must be positive.	Optional	integer
unit	The unit for the resolution.	Optional	string	pixels characters
bpp	Bits per pixel.	Optional	integer
graphics	Has the value true if the device is capable of displaying graphics; false if the device is capable of displaying only characters.	Optional	boolean	true false

 

3.1.9          Memory Description

This type of object represents the description that can be used to define the maximum memory of a given device, as well as the memory available at the time of query.

 

Frame Ontology	memory-description fipa-device
Parameter	Description	Presence[8]	Type	Reserved Values
available	The amount of memory available.	Optional	memory-type-description
maximum	The maximum amount of memory.	Optional	memory-type-description

 

3.1.10      Memory Type Description

This type of object represents the description that can be used to define the amount, unit, and usage type of some memory.

 

Frame Ontology	memory-type-description fipa-device
Parameter	Description	Presence[9]	Type	Reserved Values