Enhancing the Sustainability of a Location-Aware Service through Optimization

A location-aware service (LAS) is an imperative topic in ambient intelligence; an LAS recommends suitable utilities to a user based on the user’s location and context. However, current LASs have several problems, and most of these services do not last. This study proposes an optimization-based approach for enhancing the sustainability of an LAS. In this paper, problems related to optimizing a LAS system are presented. The distinct nature of a LAS optimization problem in comparison with traditional optimization problems is subsequently described. Existing methods applicable to solving a LAS optimization problem are also reviewed. The advantages and disadvantages of each method are then discussed as a motive for combining multiple optimization methods in this study, as illustrated by an example. Finally, opportunities and challenges faced by researchers in this field are presented.