A framework for the design, prototyping and evaluation of mobile interfaces for domestic environments

The idea of the smart home has been discussed for over three decades, but it has yet to achieve mass-market adoption. This thesis asks the question Why is my home not smart? It highlights four main areas that are barriers to adoption, and concentrates on a single one of these issues: usability. It presents an investigation that focuses on design, prototyping and evaluation of mobile interfaces for domestic environments resulting in the development of a novel framework. A smart home is the physical realisation of a ubiquitous computing system for domestic living. The research area offers numerous benefits to end-users such as convenience, assistive living, energy saving and improved security and safety. However, these benefits have yet to become accessible due to a lack of usable smart home control interfaces. This issue is considered a key reason for lack of adoption and is the focus for this thesis. Within this thesis, a framework is introduced as a novel approach for the design, prototyping and evaluation of mobile interfaces for domestic environments. Included within this framework are three components. Firstly, the Reconfigurable Multimedia Environment (RME), a physical evaluation and observation space for conducting user centred research. Secondly, Simulated Interactive Devices (SID), a video-based development and control tool for simulating interactive devices commonly found within a smart home. Thirdly, iProto, a tool that facilitates the production and rapid deployment of high fidelity prototypes for mobile touch screen devices. This framework is evaluated as a round-tripping toolchain for prototyping smart home control and found to be an efficient process for facilitating the design and evaluation of such interfaces

Application-driven visual computing towards industry 4.0 2018

245 p.La Tesis recoge contribuciones en tres campos: 1. Agentes Virtuales Interactivos: autónomos, modulares, escalables, ubicuos y atractivos para el usuario. Estos IVA pueden interactuar con los usuarios de manera natural.2. Entornos de RV/RA Inmersivos: RV en la planificación de la producción, el diseño de producto, la simulación de procesos, pruebas y verificación. El Operario Virtual muestra cómo la RV y los Co-bots pueden trabajar en un entorno seguro. En el Operario Aumentado la RA muestra información relevante al trabajador de una manera no intrusiva. 3. Gestión Interactiva de Modelos 3D: gestión online y visualización de modelos CAD multimedia, mediante conversión automática de modelos CAD a la Web. La tecnología Web3D permite la visualización e interacción de estos modelos en dispositivos móviles de baja potencia.Además, estas contribuciones han permitido analizar los desafíos presentados por Industry 4.0. La tesis ha contribuido a proporcionar una prueba de concepto para algunos de esos desafíos: en factores humanos, simulación, visualización e integración de modelos

Simulated Robotic competitions management portal

Mestrado em Engenharia de Computadores e TelemáticaA popularidade das competições robóticas simuladas, em ambos os tipos baseados em hardware e software, tem vindo a crescer com o passar dos anos devido `a contínua evolução das tecnologias da robótica e da informática. A Universidade de Aveiro, mais especificamente o DETI, desempenhou um papel relevante na propagação e desenvolvimento destas competições robóticas, visto que introduziu a competição robótica Micro-Rato para motivar os estudantes a aprender mais sobre ambientes robóticos. A etapa inicial destas competições era a um nível físico, isto é, os robôs tinham que ser construídos, os agentes tinham que ser introduzidos nos robôs e a competição teria que decorrer num local físico único. Mais tarde, os professores responsáveis pelas competições robóticas decidiram possibilitar novas plataformas de competição para atingir um maior número de interessados, assim uma nova modalidade denominada Ciber-Rato foi lançada restringindo a competição a um ambiente simulado, onde os agentes seriam executados numa aplicação criada para simular o ambiente físico e as variáveis dos componentes relativos. Desde então, o Ciber-Rato tem sido mais propagado, expandindo-se para escolas secundarias e eventos de robótica pelo mundo, sendo actualmente associado com o evento internacional RTSS. Infelizmente, a competição ainda requer a reunião dos participantes num único local físico para competir. Evidentemente, está na altura de avançar para o campo da Internet, que possibilitaria alcançar mais participantes, promover a competição internacionalmente e também disponibilizar uma nova etapa de competição, uma vez que participações remotas em eventos físicos e online seriam uma possível realidade. Este projecto visa o desenvolvimento de um portal autónomo de gestão de competições robóticas simuladas, que seria extremamente útil como uma ferramenta auxiliar na gestão de eventos físicos e também potenciaria a realização de eventos online com uma gestão autónoma completa (excepto em situações críticas). Com isto em mente, esta dissertação formaliza e descreve a estrutura, técnicas de desenvolvimento e interfaces resultantes do portal de gestão de competições robóticas simuladas, assim como discute as tecnologias Web actuais e de que forma são usadas para interligar as diversas componentes da simulação. ABSTRACT: Robotic competitions' popularity, both hardware and software based types, has been growing over the years due to the continuous evolution of the robotic and computer technologies. The University of Aveiro, more specifically DETI, has played a relevant part in the propagation and development of these robotic competitions, since it introduced the Micro-Rato robotic competition to motivate the students to learn more about robotic environments. These competitions’ initial stage was at a physical level, that is, the robots had to be built, the developed agents had to be applied to the robots and the actual competition would have to occur in a physical unique location. Later, these robotic competitions’ responsible teachers decided to provide new competition platforms to reach a higher number of interested people, so a new modality called Ciber-Rato was launched restricting the competition to a simulated environment where the developed agents would run in an application created to simulate the physical environment and relative variable components. Since then, Ciber-Rato has been more disseminated, expanding into high-schools and into worldwide robotic events, being nowadays associated with the international RTSS event. Unfortunately it still requires the gathering of the participants in a unique physical location in order to compete. Evidently, it is time to advance to the Internet field, which would allow reaching more participants, internationally promote the competition and also provide a new stage of competitions, since remote participations on physical and online events would be a near reality. This project aims the development of an autonomous simulated robotic competitions management portal, which would be extremely useful as an auxiliary tool for physical events management and also empower the realization of online events with full autonomous management (except in critical situations). With this in mind, this thesis formalizes and describes the simulated robotic competitions management portal structure, development techniques and resulting interfaces, as well as discuss the current technologies and how they are used to connect the various components of the simulation

"A model-driven approach for designing multi-platform user interface dialogues": dialogues specification

Human-computer interaction becomes sophisticated, multimodal and multi device and needs to be well-designed with the aim of facilitating application correction (i.e. to correcting errors/bugs in the application) or extension (i.e. adding new functionalities or modifying existing tasks). This thesis is focused on building a methodology of designing and specifying User Interface (UI) behaviour. The Unified Modelling Language (UML) is used to describe in detail the conceptual model and to define all its objects. The methodology flux diagram is provided with the specification of the consistency and the completeness properties of the transformation model. To support the methodology, we implement a graphic Dialog Editor in which Models are organized in three levels (abstract, concrete and final) according to Cameleon Reference Framework (CFR) and, whose process respects the Model Driven Engineering (MDE) approach. Furthermore, the use of Dialog Editor is illustrated through a simple exam...Les interfaces Homme-Machine deviennent de plus en plus complexes. Leur conception nécessite des nouveaux outils et/ou méthodes. En exploitant l'aproche orienté-modèle, cette thèse repond à ce besoin en proposant une méthodologie de conception des dialogues multi-plateform

Human Machine Interaction

In this book, the reader will find a set of papers divided into two sections. The first section presents different proposals focused on the human-machine interaction development process. The second section is devoted to different aspects of interaction, with a special emphasis on the physical interaction

Application-driven visual computing towards industry 4.0 2018

245 p.La Tesis recoge contribuciones en tres campos: 1. Agentes Virtuales Interactivos: autónomos, modulares, escalables, ubicuos y atractivos para el usuario. Estos IVA pueden interactuar con los usuarios de manera natural.2. Entornos de RV/RA Inmersivos: RV en la planificación de la producción, el diseño de producto, la simulación de procesos, pruebas y verificación. El Operario Virtual muestra cómo la RV y los Co-bots pueden trabajar en un entorno seguro. En el Operario Aumentado la RA muestra información relevante al trabajador de una manera no intrusiva. 3. Gestión Interactiva de Modelos 3D: gestión online y visualización de modelos CAD multimedia, mediante conversión automática de modelos CAD a la Web. La tecnología Web3D permite la visualización e interacción de estos modelos en dispositivos móviles de baja potencia.Además, estas contribuciones han permitido analizar los desafíos presentados por Industry 4.0. La tesis ha contribuido a proporcionar una prueba de concepto para algunos de esos desafíos: en factores humanos, simulación, visualización e integración de modelos

Multi-Agent Systems

A multi-agent system (MAS) is a system composed of multiple interacting intelligent agents. Multi-agent systems can be used to solve problems which are difficult or impossible for an individual agent or monolithic system to solve. Agent systems are open and extensible systems that allow for the deployment of autonomous and proactive software components. Multi-agent systems have been brought up and used in several application domains