Designing friends

Embodied Conversational Agents are virtual humans that can interact with humans using verbal and non-verbal forms of communication. In most cases, they have been designed for short interactions. This paper asks the question how one would start to design synthetic characters that can become your friends. We look at insights from social psychology and propose a methodology for designing friends

A Lagrangian Policy for Optimal Energy Storage Control

This paper presents a millisecond-level look-ahead control algorithm for energy storage with constant space complexity and worst-case linear run-time complexity. The algorithm connects the optimal control with the Lagrangian multiplier associated with the state-of-charge constraint. It is compared to solving look-ahead control using a state-of-the-art convex optimization solver. Simulation results show that both methods obtain the same control result, while the proposed algorithm runs up to 100,000 times faster and solves most problems within one millisecond. The theoretical results from developing this algorithm also provide key insights into designing optimal energy storage control schemes at the centralized system level as well as under distributed settings

Brokering between heads and hearts: an analysis of designing for social change

This paper describes a fluid and responsive design process identified among certain practitioners involved in solving social problems or inspiring social change. Their practice is both user-centred and participative in its approach and addresses the shortcomings of many top-down initiatives. These people work tactically to weave together policy knowledge, funding opportunities, local initiative and ideas for improving social and environmental conditions, acting as connectors, activists and facilitators in different contexts at different times. Although their activities are recognisably related to more conventional designing practices, the materials they use in finding solutions are unusual in that they may include the beneficiaries themselves and other features of the social structure in which they are effecting change. We present an ethnographic study of practices in designing that focuses on social initiatives rather than the tangible products or systems that might support them. We explore the how design practices map to the process of winning local people's commitment to projects with a social flavour. To situate the discussion in a political context we draw on de Certeau’s distinction between strategic and tactical behaviour and look at how our informants occupy a space as mediators between groups with power and a sense of agency and those without. Keywords: Social Change; Ethnographic Action Research; Discourse Analysis; Designing In The Wild</p

Multi-cursor multi-user mobile interaction with a large shared display

When using a mobile device to control a cursor on a large shared display, the interaction must be carefully planned to match the environment and purpose of the systems use. We describe a ‘democratic jukebox’ system that revealed five recommendations that should be considered when designing this type of interaction relating to providing feedback to the user; how to represent users in a multi-cursor based system; where people tend to look and their expectation of how to move their cursor; the orientation of screens and the social context; and, the use of simulated users to give the real users a sense that they are engaging with a greater audience

Semi-empirical model of MOST and passive devices focused on narrowband RF blocks

This paper presents a semi-empirical modeling of MOST and passive elements to be used in narrowband radiofrequency blocks for nanometer technologies. This model is based on a small set of look-up tables (LUTs) obtained via electrical simulations. The MOST description is valid for all-inversion regions of MOST and the data is extracted as function of the gm=ID characteristic; for the passive devices the LUTs include a simplified model of the element and its principal parasitic at the working frequency f0. These semi-empirical models are validated by designing a set of 2.4-GHz LNAs and 2.4-GHz and 5-GHz VCOs in three different MOST inversion regions

System dynamics and simulation of LSS

Large Space Structures have many unique problems arising from mission objectives and the resulting configuration. Inherent in these configurations is a strong coupling among several of the designing disciplines. In particular, the coupling between structural dynamics and control is a key design consideration. The solution to these interactive problems requires efficient and accurate analysis, simulation and test techniques, and properly planned and conducted design trade studies. The discussion presented deals with these subjects and concludes with a brief look at some NASA capabilities which can support these technology studies

Robust control of longitudinal flight with handling qualities constraints

Classical flight control systems are still widely used in industry because of acquired experience and good understanding of their structure. Nevertheless, with more stringent constraints, it becomes difficult to easily fulfill all the criteria with this classical control laws. This article aims at showing that this problem can be solved by first designing a high order controller satisfying all the constraints, then by reducing and structuring it in order to make it look like a classical controller. Firstly, an H∞ synthesis is performed in order to get a robust controller versus mass and center of gravity variations, which will satisfy the handling qualities; then it will be reduced by using robust modal control techniques