Exploring a Hybrid Approach for Modeling Context Awareness Using Analytic Hierarchy Process and Simulation

Existing research on context and context awareness has broadly focused on the technical aspects of context acquisition and interpretation of users’ surroundings, also called physical or sensor-based context. Such an approach is lack of reconciling the user’s perception of real-world context and a context-aware system’s interpretation of that context. Using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), we propose a hybrid approach that accounts for both user and physical context in defining an overall context awareness value. The model is validated using a simulation approach, which is valuable in that it examines and helps reduce the uncertainty in AHP to some extent. The results suggest several preliminary guidelines to determine representative measures of user and physical context in the design and evaluation of context-aware systems.