| Automating Routine Tasks in AmI Systems by Using Models at Runtime | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 1-10 | |
| Estefanía Serral; Pedro Valderas; Vicente Pelechano | |||
| One of the most important challenges to be confronted in Ambient Intelligent
(AmI) systems is to automate routine tasks on behalf of users. In this work, we
confront this challenge presenting a novel approach based on models at runtime.
This approach proposes a context-adaptive task model that allows routine tasks
to be specified in an understandable way for users, facilitating their
participation in the specification. These tasks are described according to
context, which is specified in an ontology-based context model. Both the
context model and the task model are also used at runtime. The approach
provides a software infrastructure capable of automating the routine tasks as
they were specified in these models by interpreting them at runtime. Keywords: task modelling; routine task automation; models at runtime; OSGi | |||
| Service Obtrusiveness Adaptation | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 11-20 | |
| Miriam Gil; Pau Giner; Vicente Pelechano | |||
| Increasingly, mobile devices play a key role in the communication between
users and the services embedded in their environment. All these services
compete for the attentional resources of the user. Thus, it is essential to
consider the degree in which each service intrudes the user mind (i.e., the
obtrusiveness level) when services are designed. In this work we introduce a
method for the development of mobile services that can be adapted in terms of
obtrusiveness. That is, services can be developed to provide their
functionality at different obtrusiveness levels by minimizing the duplication
of efforts. In order to define the obtrusiveness level adaptation in a
declarative manner we make use of Feature Modeling techniques. An experiment
was conducted in order to put in practice the proposal and evaluate the user
acceptance for the way in which services are presented. Keywords: Obtrusiveness adaptation; feature modeling; interaction adaptation | |||
| A Dynamic Time Warping Approach to Real-Time Activity Recognition for Food Preparation | | BIBA | Full-Text | 21-30 | |
| Cuong Pham; Thomas Plötz; Patrick Olivier | |||
| We present a dynamic time warping based activity recognition system for the analysis of low-level food preparation activities. Accelerometers embedded into kitchen utensils provide continuous sensor data streams while people are using them for cooking. The recognition framework analyzes frames of contiguous sensor readings in real-time with low latency. It thereby adapts to the idiosyncrasies of utensil use by automatically maintaining a template database. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the classification approach by a number of real-world practical experiments on a publically available dataset. The adaptive system shows superior performance compared to a static recognizer. Furthermore, we demonstrate the generalization capabilities of the system by gradually reducing the amount of training samples. The system achieves excellent classification results even if only a small number of training samples is available, which is especially relevant for real-world scenarios. | |||
| Refining Interaction Designs through Simplicity | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 31-40 | |
| Pablo Muñoz; Pau Giner; Vicente Pelechano | |||
| With more and more devices in our surroundings, users increasingly-consume
applications and digital services which compete for their attention. Therefore,
users appreciate simplicity when they interact with them because a less
intrusive interaction allows users focus on the task at hand. This work relates
an approach based on the concept of simplicity. We propose an iterative
interaction design process in which we include a new role. This role is only in
charge of providing simplified solutions from original designs. Moreover, we
put on practice our proposal in a case study in which we design an application
to support mobile workflows. We relate our experience and how new ideas were
produced towards the definition of refactored interactions by means of the key
of Simplicity. Keywords: interaction; simplicity; mobile devices; user-centered design | |||
| Semantic Visualization of Wireless Sensor Networks for Elderly Monitoring | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 41-50 | |
| Carsten Stocklöw; Felix Kamieth | |||
| In the area of Ambient Intelligence, Wireless Sensor Networks are commonly
used for user monitoring purposes like health monitoring and user localization.
Existing work on visualization of wireless sensor networks focuses mainly on
displaying individual nodes and logical, graph-based topologies. This way, the
relation to the real-world deployment is lost. This paper presents a novel
approach for visualization of wireless sensor networks and interaction with
complex services on the nodes. The environment is realized as a 3D model, and
multiple nodes, that are worn by a single individual, are grouped together to
allow an intuitive interface for end users. We describe application examples
and show that our approach allows easier access to network information and
functionality by comparing it with existing solutions. Keywords: Wireless Sensor Network; Semantic Visualization; Elderly Care | |||
| Privacy Management and Control in ATRACO | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 51-60 | |
| Bastian Könings; Björn Wiedersheim; Michael Weber | |||
| Privacy is a critical factor for the acceptance and success of next
generation ambient intelligent environments. Those environments often act
autonomously to support a user's activity based on context information gathered
from ubiquitous sensors. The autonomous nature and their accessibility to large
amount of personal information raises several privacy issues for participants
in such environments. Those issues need to be addressed by adequate privacy
mechanisms. In this paper we present an overview of the ATRACO approach to
provide privacy management and control in an ambient intelligent environment. Keywords: privacy; ambient intelligence; ubiquitous computing | |||
| Place in Perspective: Extracting Online Information about Points of Interest | | BIBA | Full-Text | 61-72 | |
| Ana O. Alves; Francisco C. Pereira; Filipe Rodrigues; João Oliveirinha | |||
| During the last few years, the amount of online descriptive information about places has reached reasonable dimensions for many cities in the world. Being such information mostly in Natural Language text, Information Extraction techniques are needed for obtaining the meaning of places that underlies these massive amounts of commonsense and user made sources. In this article, we show how we automatically label places using Information Extraction techniques applied to online resources such as Wikipedia, Yellow Pages and Yahoo!. | |||
| AmbiSec: Securing Smart Spaces Using Entropy Harvesting | | BIBA | Full-Text | 73-85 | |
| Paolo Barsocchi; Stefano Chessa; Ivan Martinovic; Gabriele Oligeri | |||
| Following the vision of Ambient Intelligence (AmI), this paper introduces and evaluates a novel security scheme that takes the advantage of the unpredictable and erratic behavior of wireless communication to generate secret keys. The main advantage is that the secret key generation is applicable to every wireless device, independently of their hardware characteristics as it only requires a wireless interface and a human movement, which inherently affects the signal propagation within the physical environment. To analyze the applicability of this scheme, we implement and systematically evaluate the key generation using a wireless sensor network deployed in a real-world scenario. The analysis clarifies how different factors influence the amount of randomness collected from the physical environment, and it also shows that guessing attacks from an eavesdropper are negligible even if it is able to eavesdrop the complete wireless communication. | |||
| Taxi-Aware Map: Identifying and Predicting Vacant Taxis in the City | | BIBA | Full-Text | 86-95 | |
| Santi Phithakkitnukoon; Marco Veloso; Carlos Bento; Assaf Biderman; Carlo Ratti | |||
| Knowing where vacant taxis are and will be at a given time and location helps the users in daily planning and scheduling, as well as the taxi service providers in dispatching. In this paper, we present a predictive model for the number of vacant taxis in a given area based on time of the day, day of the week, and weather condition. The history is used to build the prior probability distributions for our inference engine, which is based on the naïve Bayesian classifier with developed error-based learning algorithm and method for detecting adequacy of historical data using mutual information. Based on 150 taxis in Lisbon, Portugal, we are able to predict for each hour with the overall error rate of 0.8 taxis per 1x1 km2 area. | |||
| Dynamic Privacy Management in Pervasive Sensor Networks | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 96-106 | |
| Nan-Wei Gong; Mathew Laibowitz; Joseph A. Paradiso | |||
| This paper describes the design and implementation of a dynamic privacy
management system aimed at enabling tangible privacy control and feedback in a
pervasive sensor network. Our work began with the development of a potentially
invasive sensor network (with high resolution video, audio, and motion tracking
capabilities) featuring different interactive applications that created
incentive for accepting this network as an extension of people's daily social
space. A user study was then conducted to evaluate several privacy management
approaches -- an active badge system for both online and on-site control,
on/off power switches for physically disabling the hardware, and touch screen
input control. Results from a user study indicated that an active badge for
on-site privacy control is the most preferable method among all provided
options. We present a set of results that yield insight into the
privacy/benefit tradeoff from various sensing capabilities in pervasive sensor
networks and how privacy settings and user behavior relate in these
environments. Keywords: dynamic privacy management; ubiquitous computing; active badge system;
pervasive sensor networks | |||
| Geo-Social Interaction: Context-Aware Help in Large Scale Public Spaces | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 107-116 | |
| Nasim Mahmud; Petr Aksenov; Ansar-Ul-Haque Yasar; Davy Preuveneers; Kris Luyten; Karin Coninx; Yolande Berbers | |||
| We present an approach to exploit social and spatio-temporal context in
order to improve information dissemination in dynamic large-scale public
spaces. We illustrate it by applying a proposed measure of geo-social relevance
of each individual in a simulated vehicular network and by comparing the
performance of different network message passing techniques in an inter-vehicle
'help-me-best-and-do-it-fast' communication scenario. We conclude that the use
of social networking capabilities of an individual combined with knowledge
about their spatio-temporal context information significantly improves
purposeful interaction between individuals in terms of both the efficiency of
the network data dissemination and the quality of the delivered information. Keywords: Social network; FOAF; Context awareness; Location awareness; Information
dissemination | |||
| The Operator Guide: An Ambient Persuasive Interface in the Factory | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 117-126 | |
| Alexander Meschtscherjakov; Wolfgang Reitberger; Florian Pöhr; Manfred Tscheligi | |||
| In this paper we introduce the context of a semiconductor factory as a
promising area for the application of innovative interaction approaches. In
order to increase efficiency ambient persuasive interfaces, which influence the
operators' behaviour to perform in an optimized way, could constitute a
potential strategy. We present insights gained from qualitative studies
conducted in a specific semiconductor factory and provide a description of
typical work processes and already deployed interfaces in this context. These
findings informed the design of a prototype of an ambient persuasive interface
within this realm -- the "Operator Guide". Its overall aim is to improve work
efficiency, while still maintaining a minimal error rate. We provide a detailed
description of the Operator Guide along with an outlook of the next steps
within a user-centered design approach. Keywords: factory; ethnography; UCD; ambient persuasion | |||
| Reduction of Driver Stress Using AmI Technology while Driving in Motorway Merging Sections | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 127-137 | |
| Kashif Zia; Andreas Riener; Alois Ferscha | |||
| High average intensity of traffic and problems like traffic congestions,
road safety, etc. are challenging problems striking highway operators in these
days. With the broad application of intelligent transport systems (ITS),
particularly for the most dense street sections, some of these problems can be
minimized or even solved; supplementary great potential is attributed to
applications based on state-of-the art technology like car-to-x communication,
for instance by extending an individuals "field of vision" by observations
taken from all the vehicles in front. In this work we present a simulation
based approach for improving driving experience and increasing road safety in
merging sections by redirecting vehicles in advance according to a negotiation
of requirements and desires of the flowing traffic on the main road and cars
merging from the entrance lane. The simulation experiments performed in a
cellular automaton based environment were data driven and on real scale, using
traffic flow data on a minute-by-minute basis from a large urban motorway in a
main city of the European Union. Our results have shown that the application of
AmI technology has potential to influence driver's behavior (seamlessly
invoking for a lane change well before an abrupt merging point) resulting in a
reduction of panic, particularly for sections with limited range of view. Keywords: Data driven simulation; Driver assistance; Motorway merging; Field of view
extension; Vibro-tactile seat; Safety belt interface | |||
| Subjective Difficulty Estimation for Interactive Learning by Sensing Vibration Sound on Desk Panel | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 138-147 | |
| Nana Hamaguchi; Keiko Yamamoto; Daisuke Iwai; Kosuke Sato | |||
| In this paper, we propose a method which estimates the student's subjective
difficulty with a vibration sound on a desk obtained by a microphone on the
back of the desk panel. First, it classifies the student's behavior into
writing and non-writing by analyzing the obtained sound data. Next, the
subjective difficulty is estimated based on an assumption that the duration of
non-writing behavior becomes long if the student feels difficult because he (or
she) would not have progress on answer sheet. As a result, the accuracy of the
proposed so simple behavior classification reaches around 80%, and that of the
subjective difficulty estimation is 60%. Keywords: subjective difficulty estimation; behavior classification | |||
| Ontology Driven Piecemeal Development of Smart Spaces | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 148-156 | |
| Eila Ovaska | |||
| Software development is facing new challenges due to transformation from
product based software engineering towards integration and collaboration based
software engineering that embodies high degree of dynamism both at design time
and run time. Short time-to-markets require cost reduction by maximizing
software reuse; openness for new innovations presumes a flexible innovation
platform and agile software development; and user satisfaction assumes high
quality in a situation based manner. How to deal with these contradictory
requirements in software engineering? The main contribution of this paper is a
novel approach that is influenced by business innovation, human centered
design, model driven development and ontology oriented design. The approach is
called Ontology driven Piecemeal Software Engineering (OPSE). OPSE facilitates
incremental software development based on software pieces that follow the
design principles defined by means of ontologies. Its key elements are
abstraction, aggregation and adaptivity. The approach is intended for and
applied to the development of smart spaces. Keywords: smart space; ontology; context awareness; interoperability; MDD | |||
| Exploiting Acoustic Source Localization for Context Classification in Smart Environments | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 157-166 | |
| Christian Kleine-Cosack; Marius H. Hennecke; Szilárd Vajda; Gernot A. Fink | |||
| Smart environments rely on context classification in order to be able to
support users in their daily lives. Therefore, measurements provided by sensors
distributed throughout the environment are analyzed. A main drawback of the
solutions proposed so far is that the type of sensors and their placement often
needs to be specifically adjusted to the problem addressed. Instead, we propose
to perform context classification based on the analysis of acoustic events,
which can be observed using arrays of microphones. Consequently, the sensor
setup can be kept rather general and a wide range of contexts can be
discriminated. In an experimental evaluation within a smart conference room we
demonstrate the advantages of our new approach. Keywords: Context classification; audio localization; smart rooms | |||
| Real-Time Gaze Tracking for Public Displays | | BIBA | Full-Text | 167-176 | |
| Andreas Sippl; Clemens Holzmann; Doris Zachhuber; Alois Ferscha | |||
| In this paper, we explore the real-time tracking of human gazes in front of large public displays. The aim of our work is to estimate at which area of a display one ore more people are looking at a time, independently from the distance and angle to the display as well as the height of the tracked people. Gaze tracking is relevant for a variety of purposes, including the automatic recognition of the user's focus of attention, or the control of interactive applications with gaze gestures. The scope of the present paper is on the former, and we show how gaze tracking can be used for implicit interaction in the pervasive advertising domain. We have developed a prototype for this purpose, which (i) uses an overhead mounted camera to distinguish four gaze areas on a large display, (ii) works for a wide range of positions in front of the display, and (iii) provides an estimation of the currently gazed quarters in real time. A detailed description of the prototype as well as the results of a user study with 12 participants, which show the recognition accuracy for different positions in front of the display, are presented. | |||
| An Agent-Based Approach to Care in Independent Living | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 177-186 | |
| Bostjan Kaluza; Violeta Mirchevska; Erik Dovgan; Mitja Lustrek; Matjaz Gams | |||
| This paper presents a multi-agent system for the care of elderly people
living at home on their own, with the aim to prolong their independence. The
system is composed of seven groups of agents providing a reliable, robust and
flexible monitoring by sensing the user in the environment, reconstructing the
position and posture to create the physical awareness of the user in the
environment, reacting to critical situations, calling for help in the case of
an emergency, and issuing warnings if unusual behavior is detected. The system
has been tested during several on-line demonstrations. Keywords: Multi-agent system; fall detection; disability detection; independent
living; remote care | |||
| Making AAL Platforms a Reality | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 187-196 | |
| Antonio Kung; Bruno Jean-Bart | |||
| This paper takes the position that the advent of Ambient Assisted Living
(AAL) depends on the availability of an ecosystem based on widely accepted
mainstream platforms supporting AAL domain specific interfaces. It describes
the features which such platforms must meet, based on the experience of the
MonAMI project. It identifies challenges concerning the standardisation of
application specific interfaces, and their support by platforms. It finally
suggests two measures that will help make such platforms a reality: first, the
launching of a research and industry initiative for an open source platform;
secondly, the launching of a EC policy supported long-term process for the
adoption of AAL standards. Keywords: AmI; AAL; Platform; Applications; Policies; Standards | |||
| A Unified Architecture for Supporting Direct Tag-Based and Indirect Network-Based Resource Discovery | | BIBA | Full-Text | 197-206 | |
| Simone Mora; Babak A. Farshchian | |||
| Discovering and integrating ambient computational resources is a central topic in AmI. There are two major existing approaches: indirect network-based resource selection and direct tag-based resource identification. We motivate the need to integrate the two approaches through a scenario. We then present an architecture for a pluggable discovery system called UbiDisco. We demonstrate how UbiDisco implements a seamless integration of the two approaches at user interaction level through a framework for implementing discovery actions. | |||
| Multilevel and Hybrid Architecture for Device Abstraction and Context Information Management in Smart Home Environments | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 207-216 | |
| Víctor Peláez; Roberto González; Luis Ángel San Martín; Antonio M. Campos; Vanesa Lobato | |||
| Hardware device management, and context information acquisition and
abstraction are key factors to develop the ambient intelligent paradigm in
smart homes. This work presents an architecture that addresses these two
problems and provides a usable framework to develop applications easily. In
contrast to other proposals, this work addresses performance issues
specifically. Results show that the execution performance of the developed
prototype is suitable for deployment in a real environment. In addition, the
modular design of the system allows the user to develop applications using
different techniques and different levels of abstraction. Keywords: smart home; middleware; frameworks | |||
| A Distributed Many-Camera System for Multi-person Tracking | | BIBA | Full-Text | 217-226 | |
| Claus Lenz; Thorsten Röder; Martin Eggers; Sikandar Amin; Thomas Kisler; Bernd Radig; Giorgio Panin; Alois Knoll | |||
| This article presents a modular, distributed and scalable many-camera system designed towards tracking multiple people simultaneously in a natural human-robot interaction scenario set in an apartment mock-up. The described system employs 40 high-resolution cameras networked to 15 computers, redundantly covering an area of approximately 100 square meters. The unique scale and set-up of the system require novel approaches for vision-based tracking, especially with respect to the transfer of targets between the different tracking processes while preserving the target identities. We propose an integrated approach to cope with these challenges, and focus on the system architecture, the target information management, the calibration of the cameras and the applied tracking methodologies themselves. | |||
| An Open Distributed Framework for Adaptive User Interaction in Ambient Intelligence | | BIBA | Full-Text | 227-238 | |
| Mohammad-Reza Tazari | |||
| Challenges of handling user interaction in Ambient Intelligence environments are manifold. The systems installed in these environments are highly distributed with dynamic configurations in terms of integrated devices and installed applications. Context-awareness, personalization, and multimodality are critical for supporting more natural interaction and optimizing the interaction in an adaptive way. Research activities have dealt with different specific problems in the field and now it is high time for moving towards an open framework with a more comprehensive solution. This paper introduces results of such work with a high level of freedom in developing and deploying applications without needing to care about the available I/O infrastructure. The other way around, the latter can be changed without worrying about the application side. The independence of applications from the available I/O infrastructure helps to share mechanisms and manage such a complex scene more adequately. The key idea behind this framework is the natural distribution of tasks according to the real scene using a middleware solution supporting seamless connectivity and goal-based interoperability. | |||
| A Vision-Based System for Object Identification and Information Retrieval in a Smart Home | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 239-247 | |
| Raphael Grech; Dorothy Ndedi Monekosso; Deon de Jager; Paolo Remagnino | |||
| This paper describes a hand held device developed to assist people to locate
and retrieve information about objects in a home. The system developed is a
standalone device to assist persons with memory impairments such as people
suffering from Alzheimer's disease. A second application is object detection
and localization for a mobile robot operating in an ambient assisted living
environment. The device relies on computer vision techniques to locate a tagged
object situated in the environment. The tag is a 2D color printed pattern with
a detection range and a field of view such that the user may point from a
distance of over 1 meter. Keywords: Smart home; object detection and recognition | |||
| SeSaMoNet 2.0: Improving a Navigation System for Visually Impaired People | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 248-253 | |
| Ugo Biader Ceipidor; Carlo Maria Medaglia; Eliseo Sciarretta | |||
| The authors present the improvements obtained during the work done for the
last installation of SeSaMoNet, a navigation system for blind people. First the
mobility issues of visually impaired people are shown together with strategies
to solve them. Then an overview of the system and of its main elements is
given. Afterward, the reasons which brought to a re-design are explained and
finally the main features of the last system revision for the application are
presented and compared to the previous one. Keywords: accessibility; navigation; RFId; blind; visually impaired; mobility | |||
| Plugin Driven Architecture for Intelligent Management of Building | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 254-258 | |
| Alessandro Olivi; Roberto Borsini; Alessandro Bastari | |||
| In the present work an innovative solution based on a middleware framework
is introduced which simplifies the modeling of a software for intelligent
management of buildings and allows a multistandard and multiprotocol
integration of sensors and actuators. The adopted programming methodology has
never been used in the implementation of a BA system and makes it possible to
overcome some limitations of traditional approaches, such as the hard
integration of new interfaces and protocols. The results of the framework
application in a residential building proves the validity of the proposed
solution. Keywords: Model Driven Architecture; Building Automation | |||
| Enhancing the Expressiveness of Fingers: Multi-touch Ring Menus for Everyday Applications | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 259-264 | |
| Dietrich Kammer; Frank Lamack; Rainer Groh | |||
| In the future, environments equipped with interaction surfaces sensitive to
touch input will be a key factor to enable ambient intelligence. The user's
fingers become input devices, allowing simple and intuitive interaction, like
the manipulation of digital objects. However, people are used to everyday
applications offering a wide variety of menu choices. We evaluate ring menus to
enhance the expressiveness of finger interaction on multi-touch devices.
Applicability and limits of ring menus are discussed with regard to our
implementation by means of a preliminary user study. Keywords: Multi-touch; ring menus; pie menus; user interface design | |||
| Privacy Policy Enforcement for Ambient Ubiquitous Services | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 265-269 | |
| Were Oyomno; Pekka Jäppinen; Esa Kerttula | |||
| Ubiquitous service providers leverage miniaturised computing terminals
equipped with wireless capabilities to avail new service models. These models
are pivoted on personal and inexpensive terminals to customise services to
individual preferences. Portability, small sizes and compact keyboards are few
features popularising mobile terminals. Features enable storing and carrying of
ever increasing proportions of personal data and ability to use them in service
adaptations. Ubiquitous services automate deeper soliciting of personal data
transparently without the need for user interactions. Transparent
solicitations, acquisitions and handling of personal data legitimises privacy
concerns regarding disclosures, retention and re-use of the data. This study
presents a policy enforcement for ubiquitous services that safeguards handling
of users personal data and monitors adherence to stipulated privacy policies.
Enforcement structures towards usability and scalability are presented. Keywords: Context-aware; privacy policy; ubiquitous service; privacy | |||
| A Concept for a First Communication Initiation for Ambient Intelligent Industrial Environments | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 270-274 | |
| Florian Floerchinger; Marc Seissler | |||
| This paper presents a concept for an intuitive way of establishing physical
communication connections between industrial field devices and an universal
control device that supports several communication standards. It aims to
stimulate the discussion about how a first communication initiation in ad-hoc
linked environments has to look like. Key of the presented concept is a
reference model that specifies all communication relevant information of a
field device, attaching this information to the device, using an inexpensive
passive data carrier. Furthermore, this reference model references data like
multi-user behavior and user-rights, enabling a flexible user-centered device
interaction which satisfies the needs of an industrial environment. With such a
reference model most AMI technologies will be much more easy to use in ad-hoc
linked environments. The concept presented in this paper is being tested and
evaluated in the SmartFactoryKL, the intelligent factory of the future. Keywords: Universal Interaction Device; SmartFactoryKL; context model; industrial
communication; user-centered interaction; useML | |||
| A Bluetooth-Based Device Management Platform for Smart Sensor Environment | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 275-279 | |
| Ivan Boon-Kiat Lim; Kin Choong Yow | |||
| In this paper, we propose the use of Bluetooth as the device management
platform for the various embedded sensors and actuators in an ambient
intelligent environment. We demonstrate the ease of adding Bluetooth capability
to common sensor circuits (e.g. motion sensor circuit based on a pyroelectric
infrared (PIR) sensor). A central logic application is proposed which controls
the operation of controller devices, based on values returned by sensors via
Bluetooth. The operation of devices depends on rules that are learnt from user
behavior using an Elman recurrent neural network. Overall, Bluetooth has shown
its potential in being used as a device management platform in an ambient
intelligent environment, which allows sensors and controllers to be deployed
even in locations where power sources are not readily available, by using
battery power. Keywords: Ambient Intelligence; Smart Sensor Environment; Bluetooth | |||
| Investigation and Demonstration of Local Positioning System Using Ultrasonic Sensors for Wide Indoor Areas | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 280-284 | |
| Takashi Hada; Hikaru Sunaga; Masaki Akiyama; Shigenori Ioroi; Hiroshi Tanaka | |||
| This paper proposes an indoor positioning system for detecting the location
of a moving object such as a person or a goods trolley in a wide indoor area.
Conventional system requires synchronization between transmission and receiving
unit. As a result, they include not only an ultrasonic part but also a radio
part to maintain synchronization. We have developed a system that uses only
ultrasonic waves, that is, an asynchronous system. The system configuration and
sequence of operation are explained and the verification system which includes
H8, PIC microprocessors and a PC for positioning calculation is described. It
was confirmed that the proposed method is valid and the positioning error is
within 100mm. Keywords: Positioning System; Ultrasonic Waves; Asynchronous System; Positioning
Error; Navigation | |||
| Automatic Pedestrian Detection and Counting Applied to Urban Planning | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 285-289 | |
| Thomas Michelat; Nicolas Hueber; Pierre Raymond; Alexander Pichler; Pascal Schaal; Bernard Dugaret | |||
| The statistical knowledge of human flows in the streets is mandatory for
urban planning. Today many cities use the expensive method of manual pedestrian
counting, since there is no reliable automatic counting device. This project
aims at achieving the first efficient, real-time, embedded and autonomous
system that provides high-level data. Our first work focused on the development
of a reliable counting method under Matlab™. On the basis of video
sequences recorded in the city of Mulhouse we have validated the robustness of
our approach. Keywords: Pedestrian counting; Pedestrian detection; Background subtraction; Smart
sensor; Global sensing; Embedded computing | |||
| This Is Me: Using Ambient Voice Patterns for In-Car Positioning | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 290-294 | |
| Michael Feld; Tim Schwartz; Christian A. Müller | |||
| With the range of services that can be accessed inside a car constantly
increasing, so are the opportunities for personalizing the experience for both
driver and other passengers. A main challenge however is to find out who is
sitting where without asking explicitly. The solution presented in this paper
combines two sources of information in a novel way: Ambient speech and mobile
personal devices. The approach offers improved privacy by putting the user in
control, and it does not require specialized positioning technologies such as
RFID. In a data-driven evaluation, we confirm that the accuracy is sufficient
to support a ten-speaker scenario in practice. Keywords: Positioning; Speaker Recognition; Automotive HMI; User Modeling;
Personalization | |||
| Selective Delivery of Points of Interest | | BIBA | Full-Text | 295-299 | |
| Nuno Gil Fonseca; Luís Rente; Carlos Bento | |||
| In our daily life, we are increasingly surrounded by devices that expose us
to quantities of information well behind our cognitive capabilities. To
overcome this problem various authors propose mechanisms capable of selecting
only the most relevant pieces of information.
In this paper, we propose an approach for information selection based on the concepts of relevance, selective attention and diversity. The idea is to select the most promising items in terms of surprise and usefulness and dismiss those that are less promising. We illustrate our approach with an example of an application for restaurant selection and show the first results from an initial evaluation of this system. | |||
| Ambient Intelligence Research Landscapes: Introduction and Overview | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 300-303 | |
| Norbert Streitz | |||
| This paper starts out by introducing the "Landscapes" category at the Joint
International Conference on Ambient Intelligence (AmI-2010) and provides an
overview over the two sessions. The main part of the paper presents a framework
for the role of Ambient Intelligence in the development of the cities of the
future. This includes the integration of real and virtual worlds resulting in
Hybrid Cities and their transformation into Smart Cities. In the context, it is
argued that the technological development has to be monitored by guidelines and
goals for maintaining and improving the quality of life leading to what is
called Humane Cities, addressing, e.g., social awareness and privacy, trust and
identity. The paper closes with proposals for a future research agenda. Keywords: landscapes; ambient intelligence; smart environments; smart city; hybrid
city; ubiquitous city; humane city; research agenda | |||
| Challenges and Limitations of Intelligent Ambient Assisted Living Environments | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 304-309 | |
| Reiner Wichert | |||
| As a result of changing demographics, residing and being cared for in one's
own familiar environment versus in an institutionalised inpatient setting is
becoming the more attractive alternative for an ever increasing portion of the
population. Despite its tremendous market potential, the AAL (Ambient Assisted
Living) branch is still on the cusp of a mainstream breakthrough. A lack of
viable business models is considered almost unanimously to be the greatest
market obstacle to a broad implementation of innovative AAL systems. This paper
highlights possible explanations for this deficit and shows why the AAL
community has yet to arrive at joint solutions based on a unified AAL reference
platform. Furthermore, this paper describes the enormous potential of AmI and
AAL, as the first real opportunity for their success is provided through
universAAL and AALOA. Keywords: Ambient Assisted Living; Ambient Intelligence; market potential of AAL;
business model; self-organisation; software infrastructures; AAL reference
platform; standardisation; Smart Home; Fraunhofer AAL Alliance | |||
| The DFKI Competence Center for Ambient Assisted Living | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 310-314 | |
| Jochen Frey; Christoph Stahl; Thomas Röfer; Bernd Krieg-Brückner; Jan Alexandersson | |||
| The DFKI Competence Center for Ambient Assisted Living (CCAAL) is a
cross-project and cross-department virtual organization within the German
Research Center for Artificial Intelligence coordinating and conducting
research and development in the area of Ambient Assisted Living (AAL). Our
demonstrators range from multimodal speech dialog systems to fully instrumented
environments allowing the development of intelligent assistant systems, for
instance an autonomous wheelchair, or the recognition and processing of
everyday activities in a smart home. These innovative technologies are then
tested, evaluated and demonstrated in DFKI's living labs. Keywords: intelligent environments; ambient assisted living; living labs | |||
| Intersecting the Architecture of the Internet of Things with the Future Retail Industry | | BIBA | Full-Text | 315-319 | |
| Carsten Magerkurth; Stephan Haller; Pascal Hagedorn | |||
| This paper discusses the approach of SAP Research in Switzerland to investigate, develop and evaluate future Internet of Things architectures and prototypes with their unique combination of three scientific pillars: SAP Research combines an environment of co-located academic education at leading universities ("Campus-Based Engineering Centers") with the concept of living laboratories in which real-world prototypes and systems are rigorously tested. SAP Research Switzerland hosts the "Future Retail Center" (FRC) in order to validate innovations in the retail industry. As an orthogonal element, we also structure our research activities in technological dimensions as opposed to the industry-specific living labs. The "Smart Items Research Program" bundles and focuses all research topics that are related to Ambient Intelligence (AmI), Internet of Things, and Pervasive Computing. With the researchers from the engineering centers, the industry focus in the living labs, and the different research projects and research programs, a holistic research perspective is created that ensures a highly effective and focused execution of research, unifying technical Internet of Things architectures with the corresponding business needs and forming a unique landscape of innovation. | |||
| On the Role of ExperienceLab in Professional Domain Ambient Intelligence Research | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 320-324 | |
| Evert van Loenen; Richard van de Sluis; Boris E. R. de Ruyter; Emile H. L. Aarts | |||
| Concept development for professional domain AmI solutions involves different
stakeholders than those for consumer products, and puts different requirements
on experience test methods and facilities. Philips ExperienceLab facility for
experience research is described, as well as trends and lessons learned from
its use in the two domains. Keywords: User-centered Research; Ambient Intelligence; Experience Research; Healing
Environments | |||
| The Christian Doppler Laboratory on Contextual Interfaces | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 325-332 | |
| Thomas Grill; Wolfgang Reitberger; Marianna Obrist; Alexander Meschtscherjakov; Manfred Tscheligi | |||
| Contextual interfaces gain more and more importance within the last years.
Numerous research programs that address the term context have been established,
each focusing on context from their own point of view. The Christian Doppler
Laboratory on Contextual Interfaces has been founded with different goals in
mind. The first goal is to elaborate on the definitions and foundations of the
term context to achieve a common understanding on how to use context and the
terms related to context. Further we elaborate on the relation between context
and user experience to tackle the complexity of the interrelations between both
areas. The second goal is to apply the findings of the basic context research
with two different context laboratories, each addressing a different
application area. This allows to build a robust research basis that is applied
to application oriented research. Keywords: ambient interfaces; human computer interaction; context; usability | |||
| Workshop on Interaction Techniques in Real and Simulated Assistive Smart Environments | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 333-336 | |
| Felix Kamieth; Johannes Schäfer; Juan-Carlos Naranjo; Antonella Arca; Jacopo Aleotti | |||
| To further the development of AmI solutions, the simulation of solutions in
virtual reality can help saving both development costs and time. The simulation
of AAL environments, however, adds additional requirements to the interaction
modalities used for making the simulated environment suitable for AAL target
groups like elderly and handicapped people. This workshop aims at the
development of a systematic approach to the creation of such simulation
environments for reducing the additional gap between the virtual reality
simulation of an environment and its real counterpart in terms of end-user
interaction. This paper provides an analysis of the core problems of this issue
an overview of current technological approaches to solve them. Keywords: Ambient Intelligence; Virtual Reality; Simulation; Interaction | |||
| Workshop on Pervasive Computing and Cooperative Environments in a Global Context | | BIBA | Full-Text | 337-338 | |
| Kirusnapillai Selvarajah; Neil A. Speirs | |||
| The increasing number of devices that are invisibly embedded into our surrounding environment as well as the proliferation of wireless communication and sensing technologies are the basis for visions like ambient intelligence, ubiquitous and pervasive computing. In this context, the objective of PECES EU project is the creation of a comprehensive software layer to enable the seamless cooperation of embedded devices across various smart spaces on a global scale in a context-dependent, secure and trustworthy manner. | |||
| 'Designing Ambient Interactions -- Pervasive Ergonomic Interfaces for Ageing Well' (DAI'10) | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 339-341 | |
| Arjan Geven; Sebastian Prost; Manfred Tscheligi; John Soldatos; Mari Feli González | |||
| The workshop will focus on novel computer based interaction mechanisms and
interfaces, which boost natural interactivity and obviate the need for
conventional tedious interfaces. Such interfaces are increasingly used in
ambient intelligence environments and related applications, including
application boosting elderly cognitive support, cognitive rehabilitation and
Ambient Assisted Living (AAL). The aim of the workshop is to provide insights
on the technological underpinnings of such interfaces, along with tools and
techniques for their design and evaluation. Keywords: AAL; Elderly; User centred design; context-awareness; pervasive computing;
ergonomics | |||
| 3rd Workshop on Semantic Ambient Media Experience (SAME) -- In Conjunction with AmI-2010 | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 342-345 | |
| Artur Lugmayr; Björn Stockleben; Juha Kaario; Bogdan Pogorelc; Thomas Risse | |||
| The SAME workshop takes place for the 3rd time in 2010, and it's theme in
this year was creating the business value-creation, vision, media theories and
technology for ambient media. SAME differs from other workshops due to its
interactive and creative touch and going beyond simple powerpoint
presentations. Several results will be published by AMEA -- the AMbient Media
Association (www.AmbientMediaAssociation.org). Keywords: ambient intelligence; ubiquitous computation; pervasive computation;
pervasive e-commerce; media studies; ambient health | |||
| Workshop AccessibleTV "Accessible User Interfaces for Future TV Applications" | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 346-348 | |
| Volker Hahn; Pascal Hamisu; Christopher Jung; Gregor Heinrich; Carlos Duarte; Patrick Langdon | |||
| Approximately half of the elderly people over 55 suffer from some type of
typically mild visual, auditory, motor or cognitive impairment. For them
interaction, especially with PCs and other complex devices is sometimes
challenging, although accessible ICT applications could make much of a
difference for their living quality. Basically they have the potential to
enable or simplify participation and inclusion in their surrounding private and
professional communities. However, the availability of accessible user
interfaces being capable to adapt to the specific needs and requirements of
users with individual impairments is very limited. Although there are a number
of APIs [1, 2, 3, 4] available for various platforms that allow developers to
provide accessibility features within their applications, today none of them
provides features for the automatic adaptation of multimodal interfaces being
capable to automatically fit the individual requirements of users with
different kinds of impairments. Moreover, the provision of accessible user
interfaces is still expensive and risky for application developers, as they
need special experience and effort for user tests. Today many implementations
simply neglect the needs of elderly people, thus locking out a large portion of
their potential users. The workshop is organized as part of the dissemination
activity for the European-funded project GUIDE "Gentle user interfaces for
elderly people", which aims to address this situation with a comprehensive
approach for the realization of multimodal user interfaces being capable to
adapt to the needs of users with different kinds of mild impairments. As
application platform, GUIDE will mainly target TVs and Set-Top Boxes, such as
the emerging Connected-TV or WebTV platforms, as they have the potential to
address the needs of the elderly users with applications such as for home
automation, communication or continuing education. Keywords: AccessibleTV; accessibility; multimodal interfaces; set-top boxes; open
platforms; connected-TV; WebTV platforms | |||
| First Workshop on Radically Innovative AAL Services | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 349-350 | |
| Juan-Pablo Lázaro; Sergio Guillén | |||
| The following document describes the call for papers for a workshop based on
identifying the key aspects that are implicit in any innovative application or
service in the field of Ambient Assisted Living. Expected results will be
focused in identifying the success factors that are under successful
implementations and deployments of AAL Services in real conditions. Keywords: Ambient Assisted Living; AAL Services; innovation; best practices; barriers
in AAL adoption; exploitation | |||
| First Workshop on Convergence and Consolidation towards Standard AAL Platform Services | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 351-352 | |
| Juan-Pablo Lázaro; Sergio Guillén; Babak A. Farshchian; Marius Mikalsen | |||
| The following document describes the call for papers for a workshop based on
identifying which are the potential commonalities that are important for an AAL
system, so they can be discussed and proposed for opening an standardization
process. Groups of components like context-management, user interaction
management or semantic description of services are frequent components and
technologies that are part of an AAL system. Keywords: Ambient Assisted Living; standardization; ontologies; platforms | |||