Context management in an agent-based approach for service assistance in the domain of consumer electronics

In this article, we will give an overview of a context management facility that provides the required knowledge base and event mechanism to enable situation-aware assistance in the domain of consumer electronics. The automatic acquisition of information about the ecological and technical environment, as well as the »working« situation and preferences of the end-user, together establish the usage context and play an important role for a personalized, efficient information access and pro-active service offering. We propose an interface and architecture of a context management component (CONJURER), which is integrated into a multi-agent system. The context manager s main task is to provide the current usage context. Agents in the system query or change the context using appropriate KQML messages.