Sat­Na­vi­Serv pro­ject

This project was the first to discuss the question of how mobile and thus context-dependent systems such as cell phones, PDAs, but also agricultural or construction machinery can be integrated into business processes in a largely automated manner. The concept of the “context” of a system quickly took on a special role, as mobile devices cannot or should not always support all possible processes in a meaningful way. Depending on the situation (context) of the device, only certain processes are possible or permitted. Within the context, the location plays a special role.

In the project, particular attention was paid to making location information available. Satellite navigation provides a natural basis for this, as receivers (especially GPS) are available in the vast majority of mobile systems. However, recording the absolute position is not enough to be able to draw really appropriate conclusions. The location must also be understood semantically so that, for example, the proximity to a place of interest or a place of work can be inferred from the location coordinates. To do this, the location information must be interpreted using a form of expert knowledge. Map providers such as OpenStreetMaps (OSM) and rule systems are suitable for this.

The SatNaviServ project developed a software platform to formally describe business processes, record location information – including via Galileo – recognize its semantics and draw conclusions about possible business processes. This laid the foundations for integrating mobile systems into these processes, which were used in other projects.