Pervasive Services for Flexible Spaces

Abstract

Shared spaces are increasingly being used in working environments to cope with the limitations in the available facilities, in terms of both square meters and costs. One important example of shared resource is represented by a meeting room that can be booked and used by several actors, for instance, companies co-located in a business hub. To this end, current reservation systems have several limitations. First, access control is not really enforced based on the owner of the booking. Second, it is difficult to monitor the utilization of resources unless occupancy sensors are deployed, thus incurring in additional costs.

In this thesis we have realized a cloud-based reservation and access system for shared rooms. Our solution is based on an electronic lock and a digital sign together with a reservation server. Users can book a room by using third-party authentication and can access the room by a simple and usable method that involves scanning a QR Code with a mobile phone. We have designed the sys- tem architecture and have implemented the service by using modern mobile web technologies. We have also analyzed the economic feasibility of our approach and developed a supporting business model. Our system has been piloted in the Learning Hub of the Computer Science library as part of the Flexible Spaces Service project sponsored by the EIT ICT Labs.