Mobility patterns

We present a data model for tracking mobile objects and reporting the result of queries. The model relies on a discrete view of the spatio-temporal space, where the 2D space and the time axis are respectively partitioned in a finite set of user-defined areas and in constant-size intervals. We define a generic query language to retrieve objects that match mobility patterns describing a sequence of moves. We also identify a subset of restrictions to this language in order to express only deterministic queries for which we discuss evaluation techniques to maintain incrementally the result of queries. The model is conceptually simple, efficient, and constitutes a practical and effective solution to the problem of continuously tracking moving objects with sequence queries.