C-CAST · Context Casting

Project Context Casting (C-Cast) main objective is to evolve mobile multimedia multicasting to exploit the increasing integration of mobile devices with our everyday physical world and environment. The key motivation for this project and why we believe Europe needs a project on Context Casting is because multicasting is the key enabler that will make mobile context aware services commercially attractive. Use of mobile multicast communication especially for multimedia content has always been a very attractive proposition. There will be many situations when a multicast or broadcast will be a much more affective and appropriate form of communication service but the majority are dynamic, situation specific and consequently great service opportunities are lost. C-Cast is based on two main competence areas: creation of context awareness and multicasting technologies. Context information defines groups that demand the same information or service. These services are delivered efficiently by multicasting bearers. The project will research, investigate and define ways to use the situation/environment of a user (a mobile device) to initiate group communication. This environment mediated multicast may be triggered by an event or something in the physical environment offering a situation or context orientated service. C-Cast will provide an end-to-end context-aware communication framework specifically for intelligent multicast-broadcast services. It addresses three key issueso Development of context and group management service enablers for context representation, context assisted group management and context reasoning.o Definition of a framework to collect sensor data, distribute context information and manage efficiently context aware multiparty and multicast transport.o Development of mechanisms for autonomous context driven content creation, adaptation and media delivery.