Qos-aware Middleware for Mobile Multimedia Communications

Next generation wireless communications system will be required to support the seamless delivery of voice, video and data with high quality. Delivering hard Quality of Service (QOS) assurances in the wireless domain is complex due to large-scale mobility requirements, limited radio resources and fluctuating network conditions. To address this challenge we are developing mobiware, a QOS-aware middleware platform that contains the complexity of supporting multimedia applications operating over wireless and mobile networks. Mobiware is a highly programmable software platform based on the latest distributed systems technology (viz. CORBA and Java). It is designed to operate between the application and radio-link layers of next generation wireless and mobile systems. Mobiware provides value-added QOS support by allowing mobile multimedia applications to operate transparently during handoff and periods of persistent QOS fluctuation.