K-Trek: A Peer-to-Peer Infrastructure for Distributing Using Knowledge in Large Environments

In this paper, we explore an architecture, called K-Trek, that enables mobile users to travel across knowledge distributed over a large geographical area (ranging from large public buildings to a national park). Our aim is providing, distributing, and enriching the environment with location-sensitive information for use by agents on board of mobile and static devices. Local interactions among K-Trek devices and the distribution of information in the larger environment adopt some typical peer-to-peer patterns and techniques. We introduce the architecture, discuss some of its potential knowledge management applications, and present a few experimental results obtained with simulation.