Towards Proactive Context-aware Computing and Systems

A primary goal of context-aware systems is delivering the right information at the right place and right time to users in order to enable them to make effective decisions and improve their quality of life. There are three key requirements for achieving this goal: determining what information is relevant, personalizing it based on the users’ context (location, preferences, behavioral history etc.), and delivering it to them in a timely manner without an explicit request from them. These requirements create a paradigm that we term as “Proactive Context-aware Computing”. Most of the existing context-aware systems fulfill only a subset of these requirements. Many of these systems focus only on personalization of the requested information based on users’ current context. Moreover, they are often designed for specific domains. In addition, most of the existing systems are reactive - the users request for some information and the system delivers it to them. These systems are not proactive i.e. they cannot anticipate users’ intent and behavior and act proactively without an explicit request from them. In order to overcome these limitations, we need to conduct a deeper analysis and enhance our understanding of context-aware systems that are generic, universal, proactive and applicable to a wide variety of domains. To support this dissertation, we explore several directions. Clearly the most significant sources of information about users today are smartphones. A large amount of users’ context can be acquired through them and they can be used as an effective means to deliver information to users. In addition, social media such as Facebook, Flickr and Foursquare provide a rich and powerful platform to mine users’ interests, preferences and behavioral history. We employ the ubiquity of smartphones and the wealth of information available from social media to address the challenge of building proactive context-aware systems. We have implemented and evaluated a few approaches, including some as part of the Rover framework, to achieve the paradigm of Proactive Context-aware Computing. Rover is a context-aware research platform which has been evolving for the last 6 years. Since location is one of the most important context for users, we have developed ‘Locus’, an indoor localization, tracking and navigation system for multi-story buildings. Other important dimensions of users’ context include the activities that they are engaged in. To this end, we have developed ‘SenseMe’, a system that leverages the smartphone and its multiple sensors in order to perform multidimensional context and activity recognition for users. As part of the ‘SenseMe’ project, we also conducted an exploratory study of privacy, trust, risks and other concerns of users with smart phone based personal sensing systems and applications. To determine what information would be relevant to users’ situations, we have developed ‘TellMe’ - a system that employs a new, flexible and scalable approach based on Natural Language Processing techniques to perform bootstrapped discovery and ranking of relevant information in context-aware systems. In order to personalize the relevant information, we have also developed an algorithm and system for mining a broad range of users’ preferences from their social network profiles and activities. For recommending new information to the users based on their past behavior and context history (such as visited locations, activities and time), we have developed a recommender system and approach for performing multi-dimensional collaborative recommendations using tensor factorization. For timely delivery of personalized and relevant information, it is essential to anticipate and predict users’ behavior. To this end, we have developed a unified infrastructure, within the Rover framework, and implemented several novel approaches and algorithms that employ various contextual features and state of the art machine learning techniques for building diverse behavioral models of users. Examples of generated models include classifying users’ semantic places and mobility states, predicting their availability for accepting calls on smartphones and inferring their device charging behavior. Finally, to enable proactivity in context-aware systems, we have also developed a planning framework based on HTN planning. Together, these works provide a major push in the direction of proactive context-aware computing

Plan-based proactive computing

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2003.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 81-88).This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.As the field of ubiquitous computing (ubicomp) has matured, the issue of how ubicomp applications should make use of all the devices available to them has not received much attention. We address this issue by presenting a plan-based execution model for creating proactive ubiquitous computing applications. Three applications, each from different domains, were built using this paradigm. These applications demonstrate how knowledge of a person's plan can be used to proactively assist that person. This thesis also discusses the benefits this paradigm provides application developers.by Gary Wail Keung Look.S.M

Libro de aplicaciones y usabilidad de la televisión digital interactiva : VIII Conferencia Iberoamericana de Aplicaciones t Usabilidad de la TV Interactiva (jAUTI 2019)

Las jAUTI2019 VIII Jornadas Iberoamericanas sobre Aplicaciones y Usabilidad de la Televisión Digital Interactiva, se realizaron durante WebMedia 2019 XXV Simpósio Brasilero de Sistemas Multimedia y Web , del 29 de Octubre al 1 de Noviembre en Río de Janeiro (Brasil). jAUTI2019 es la octava edición de un evento científico organizado anualmente por la RedAUTI Red Temática de Aplicaciones y Usabilidad de la Televisión Digital Interactiva, formada por más de 250 investigadores pertenecientes a 32 universidades de España, Portugal y once países latinoamericanos (Argentina, Brasil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Perú, Uruguay, Venezuela). Este libro reúne los trabajos aceptados en el evento el cual tiene como objetivo presentar los esfuerzos de investigación de la academia, la industria o las agencias gubernamentales en el diseño, desarrollo y usabilidad de aplicaciones para la Televisión Digital Interactiva (TVDi) y tecnologías relacionadas.A jAUTI 2019 - VIII Conferência Ibero-Americana de Aplicações e Usabilidade da Televisão Digital Interativa, foi realizada durante o WebMedia 2019 - XXV Simpósio Brasileiro de Multimídia e Sistemas Web, de 29 de outubro à 1 de novembro no Rio de Janeiro (Brasil). O jAUTI 2019 é a oitava edição de um evento científico organizado anualmente pela Rede Temática de Aplicações e Usabilidade da Televisão Digital Interativa (RedAUTI), formada por mais de 250 pesquisadores de 32 universidades de Espanha, Portugal e onze países da América Latina (Argentina, Brasil, Colômbia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Chile, Equador, Guatemala, Peru, Uruguai, Venezuela). Este livro reúne os trabalhos aceitos no evento, que visa apresentar os esforços de pesquisa da academia, da indústria ou de agências governamentais no projeto, desenvolvimento e usabilidade de aplicativos para Televisão Digital Interativa (TVDi) e tecnologias relacionadas.The jAUTI 2019 VIII Ibero-American Conference on Applications and Usability of Interactive Digital Television, were held during WebMedia 2019 XXV Brazilian Symposium on Multimedia and Web Systems, from October 29 to November 1 in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). jAUTI 2019 is the eighth edition of a scientific event organized annually by the RedAUTI Thematic Network of Applications and Usability of Interactive Digital Television, formed by more than 250 researchers from 32 universities in Spain, Portugal and eleven Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela). This book gathers the works accepted in the event which aims to present the research efforts of the academy, industry or government agencies in the design, development and usability of applications for Interactive Digital Television (TVDi) and related technologies.RedAUT

Libro de aplicaciones y usabilidad de la televisión digital interactiva : VIII Conferencia Iberoamericana de Aplicaciones t Usabilidad de la TV Interactiva (jAUTI 2019)

Las jAUTI2019 VIII Jornadas Iberoamericanas sobre Aplicaciones y Usabilidad de la Televisión Digital Interactiva, se realizaron durante WebMedia 2019 XXV Simpósio Brasilero de Sistemas Multimedia y Web , del 29 de Octubre al 1 de Noviembre en Río de Janeiro (Brasil). jAUTI2019 es la octava edición de un evento científico organizado anualmente por la RedAUTI Red Temática de Aplicaciones y Usabilidad de la Televisión Digital Interactiva, formada por más de 250 investigadores pertenecientes a 32 universidades de España, Portugal y once países latinoamericanos (Argentina, Brasil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Perú, Uruguay, Venezuela). Este libro reúne los trabajos aceptados en el evento el cual tiene como objetivo presentar los esfuerzos de investigación de la academia, la industria o las agencias gubernamentales en el diseño, desarrollo y usabilidad de aplicaciones para la Televisión Digital Interactiva (TVDi) y tecnologías relacionadas.A jAUTI 2019 - VIII Conferência Ibero-Americana de Aplicações e Usabilidade da Televisão Digital Interativa, foi realizada durante o WebMedia 2019 - XXV Simpósio Brasileiro de Multimídia e Sistemas Web, de 29 de outubro à 1 de novembro no Rio de Janeiro (Brasil). O jAUTI 2019 é a oitava edição de um evento científico organizado anualmente pela Rede Temática de Aplicações e Usabilidade da Televisão Digital Interativa (RedAUTI), formada por mais de 250 pesquisadores de 32 universidades de Espanha, Portugal e onze países da América Latina (Argentina, Brasil, Colômbia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Chile, Equador, Guatemala, Peru, Uruguai, Venezuela). Este livro reúne os trabalhos aceitos no evento, que visa apresentar os esforços de pesquisa da academia, da indústria ou de agências governamentais no projeto, desenvolvimento e usabilidade de aplicativos para Televisão Digital Interativa (TVDi) e tecnologias relacionadas.The jAUTI 2019 VIII Ibero-American Conference on Applications and Usability of Interactive Digital Television, were held during WebMedia 2019 XXV Brazilian Symposium on Multimedia and Web Systems, from October 29 to November 1 in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). jAUTI 2019 is the eighth edition of a scientific event organized annually by the RedAUTI Thematic Network of Applications and Usability of Interactive Digital Television, formed by more than 250 researchers from 32 universities in Spain, Portugal and eleven Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela). This book gathers the works accepted in the event which aims to present the research efforts of the academy, industry or government agencies in the design, development and usability of applications for Interactive Digital Television (TVDi) and related technologies.RedAUT

Libro de aplicaciones y usabilidad de la televisión digital interactiva : VIII Conferencia Iberoamericana de Aplicaciones t Usabilidad de la TV Interactiva (jAUTI 2019)

Las jAUTI2019 VIII Jornadas Iberoamericanas sobre Aplicaciones y Usabilidad de la Televisión Digital Interactiva, se realizaron durante WebMedia 2019 XXV Simpósio Brasilero de Sistemas Multimedia y Web , del 29 de Octubre al 1 de Noviembre en Río de Janeiro (Brasil). jAUTI2019 es la octava edición de un evento científico organizado anualmente por la RedAUTI Red Temática de Aplicaciones y Usabilidad de la Televisión Digital Interactiva, formada por más de 250 investigadores pertenecientes a 32 universidades de España, Portugal y once países latinoamericanos (Argentina, Brasil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Perú, Uruguay, Venezuela). Este libro reúne los trabajos aceptados en el evento el cual tiene como objetivo presentar los esfuerzos de investigación de la academia, la industria o las agencias gubernamentales en el diseño, desarrollo y usabilidad de aplicaciones para la Televisión Digital Interactiva (TVDi) y tecnologías relacionadas.A jAUTI 2019 - VIII Conferência Ibero-Americana de Aplicações e Usabilidade da Televisão Digital Interativa, foi realizada durante o WebMedia 2019 - XXV Simpósio Brasileiro de Multimídia e Sistemas Web, de 29 de outubro à 1 de novembro no Rio de Janeiro (Brasil). O jAUTI 2019 é a oitava edição de um evento científico organizado anualmente pela Rede Temática de Aplicações e Usabilidade da Televisão Digital Interativa (RedAUTI), formada por mais de 250 pesquisadores de 32 universidades de Espanha, Portugal e onze países da América Latina (Argentina, Brasil, Colômbia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Chile, Equador, Guatemala, Peru, Uruguai, Venezuela). Este livro reúne os trabalhos aceitos no evento, que visa apresentar os esforços de pesquisa da academia, da indústria ou de agências governamentais no projeto, desenvolvimento e usabilidade de aplicativos para Televisão Digital Interativa (TVDi) e tecnologias relacionadas.The jAUTI 2019 VIII Ibero-American Conference on Applications and Usability of Interactive Digital Television, were held during WebMedia 2019 XXV Brazilian Symposium on Multimedia and Web Systems, from October 29 to November 1 in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). jAUTI 2019 is the eighth edition of a scientific event organized annually by the RedAUTI Thematic Network of Applications and Usability of Interactive Digital Television, formed by more than 250 researchers from 32 universities in Spain, Portugal and eleven Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela). This book gathers the works accepted in the event which aims to present the research efforts of the academy, industry or government agencies in the design, development and usability of applications for Interactive Digital Television (TVDi) and related technologies.RedAUT

Distributed coordination in unstructured intelligent agent societies

Current research on multi-agent coordination and distributed problem solving is still not robust or scalable enough to build large real-world collaborative agent societies because it relies on either centralised components with full knowledge of the domain or pre-defined social structures. Our approach allows overcoming these limitations by using a generic coordination framework for distributed problem solving on totally unstructured environments that enables each agent to decompose problems into sub-problems, identify those which it can solve and search for other agents to delegate the sub-problems for which it does not have the necessary knowledge or resources. Regarding the problem decomposition process, we have developed two distributed versions of the Graphplan planning algorithm. To allow an agent to discover other agents with the necessary skills for dealing with unsolved sub-problems, we have created two peer-to-peer search algorithms that build and maintain a semantic overlay network that connects agents relying on dependency relationships, which improves future searches. Our approach was evaluated using two different scenarios, which allowed us to conclude that it is efficient, scalable and robust, allowing the coordinated distributed solving of complex problems in unstructured environments without the unacceptable assumptions of alternative approaches developed thus far.As abordagens actuais de coordenação multi-agente e resolução distribuída de problemas não são suficientemente robustas ou escaláveis para criar sociedades de agentes colaborativos uma vez que assentam ou em componentes centralizados com total conhecimento do domínio ou em estruturas sociais pré-definidas. A nossa abordagem permite superar estas limitações através da utilização de um algoritmo genérico de coordenação de resolução distribuída de problemas em ambientes totalmente não estruturados, o qual permite a cada agente decompor problemas em sub-problemas, identificar aqueles que consegue resolver e procurar outros agentes a quem delegar os subproblemas para os quais não tem conhecimento suficiente. Para a decomposição de problemas, criámos duas versões distribuídas do algoritmo de planeamento Graphplan. Para procurar os agentes com as capacidades necessárias à resolução das partes não resolvidas do problema, criámos dois algoritmos de procura que constroem e mantêm uma camada de rede semântica que relaciona agentes dependentes com o fim de facilitar as procuras. A nossa abordagem foi avaliada em dois cenários diferentes, o que nos permitiu concluir que ´e uma abordagem eficiente, escalável e robusta, possibilitando a resolução distribuída e coordenada de problemas complexos em ambientes não estruturados sem os pressupostos inaceitáveis em que assentava o trabalho feito até agora

Introducing norms into practical reasoning agents

As distributed electronic systems grow to include thousands of components, from grid to peer-to-peer nodes, from (Semantic) Web services to web-apps to computation in the cloud, governance of such systems is becoming a real challenge. Modern approaches ensuring appropriate individual entities' behaviour in distributed systems, which comes from multi-agent systems (MAS) research, use norms (or regulations or policies) and/or communication protocols to express a different layer of desired or undesired states. From the individuals perspective, an agent needs to be able to function in an environment where norms act as behavioural restrictions or guidelines as to what is appropriate, not only for the individual but also for the community. In the literature the concept of norms has been defined from several perspectives: as a rule or standard of behaviour shared by members of a social group, as an authoritative rule or standard by which something is judged, approved or disapproved, as standards of right and wrong, beauty and ugliness, and truth and falsehood, or even as a model of what should exist or be followed, or an average of what currently does exist in some context. Currently there exist in the literature: 1) some treatments that formally connect the deontic aspects of norms with their operationalisation; 2) some treatments that properly distinguish between abstract norms and their (multiple) instantiations at runtime; 3) little work that formalises the operational semantics in a way that ensures flexibility in their translation to actual implementations while ensuring unambiguous interpretations of the norms; 4) little work that is suitable for both institutional-level norm monitoring and individual agent norm-aware reasoning to ensure that both are aligned; 5) few works that explore how the norms may affect the decision making process of an agent when the process includes planning mechanisms at runtime for means-ends reasoning. However, currently there is no work that includes both a formalism and an implementation covering 1-5 altogether. This thesis presents work towards the above five areas. We give a proposal to bridge the gap between a single norm formalisation and the actual mechanisms used for norm-aware planning, in order to create a normative practical reasoning mechanism. One way to do this is by reducing deontic-based norm definitions to temporal logic formulas which, in turn, can be translated into planning operational semantics. Based on these semantics, we create a mechanism to support practical normative reasoning that can be used by agents to produce and evaluate their plans. We construct a norm-oriented agent that takes into consideration operationalised norms during the plan generation phase, using them as guidelines to decide the agents future action path. To make norms influence plan generation, our norm operational semantics is expressed as an extension of the planning domain, acting as a form of temporal restrictions over the trajectories (plans) computed by the planner. We consider two approaches to do so. One implementing the semantics by using planning with constraints through paths and the other by directly translating the norms into domain knowledge to be included into the planning domain. We explore a scenario based on traffic laws in order to demonstrate the usability of our proposal. We also show how our normative frameworks are successfullyintegrated into an existing BDI agent implementation, 2APL. For each approach taken, we present quantitative experimental results and illustrate the opportunities for further research.La gestión de sistemas electrónicos distribuidos se está convirtiendo en un auténtico reto a medida que dichos sistemas crecen incluyendo múltiples componentes, desde nodos grid a peer-to-peer, servicios de la Web semántica, aplicaciones web o computación en la nube. Los enfoques modernos que aseguran un comportamiento adecuado de las entidades individuales en sistemas distribuidos, y que provienen de la investigación en sistemas multi-agentes (MAS), utilizan normas (o regulaciones o políticas) para expresar un nivel diferente de estados deseados o no deseados. Desde la perspectiva del individuo, un agente necesita poder funcionar en un entorno donde las normas actúen como restricciones o directrices de comportamiento respecto a lo que es apropiado,no únicamente para el individuo sino para la comunidad en su conjunto. En la literatura el concepto de norma se ha definido desde varias perspectivas: como una regla o estándar de comportamiento compartida por los miembros de un grupo social, como estándar de lo correcto o incorrecto, belleza o fealdad, o incluso, como un modelo que debería existir o ser seguido. En la actualidad se pueden encontrar en la literatura: 1) trabajos que conectan formalmente los aspectos deónticos de las normas con su operacionalización; 2) trabajos que distinguen adecuadamente entre normas abstractas y sus (múltiples) instanciaciones en tiempo de ejecución; 3) algún ejemplo que formaliza las semánticas operacionales de manera que se asegura la flexibilidad en su traducción a implementaciones garantizando a su vez interpretaciones no ambiguas de las normas; 4) algún trabajo que se adecúa tanto a la monitorización de normas a nivel institucional como al razonamiento basado en normas a nivel de los agentes individuales y que asegura que ambos están alineados; 5) algún trabajo que explora como las normas pueden afectar al proceso de toma de decisiones de un agente cuando el proceso incluye mecanismos de planificación en tiempo real para un razonamiento medios-fines. Sin embargo, actualmente no existe ningún enfoque que incluya formalismos e implementaciones abordando los 5 puntos al mismo tiempo. La presente tesis propone contribuciones en las cinco áreas mencionadas. Se presenta una propuesta para establecer un enlace entre la formalización de una norma y los mecanismos utilizados en la planificación basada en normas con el objetivo de crear un mecanismo de razonamiento práctico normativo. Una forma de conseguirlo es mediante la reducción de las definiciones de normas basadas en deóntica a fórmulas de lógica temporal que, a su vez, pueden ser traducidas a semánticas operacionales de planificación. Basándose en estas semánticas, se ha creado un mecanismo para dar soporte al razonamiento normativo práctico que puede ser utilizado por los agentes para producir y evaluar sus planes. Se ha construido un agente orientado a normas que tiene en consideración las normas operacionalizadas durante la fase de generación de planes, utilizándolas como directrices para decidir el futuro curso de acción del agente. Nuestras semánticas operacionales de normas se expresan como una extensión del dominio de la planificación, actuando como una forma de restricciones temporales sobre las trayectorias (planes) computadas por el planificador. Se han considerado dos enfoques para realizarlo. Uno, implementando las semánticas utilizando planificación con restricciones a través de caminos y otro, traduciendo directamente las normas en conocimiento del dominio que se incluirá en el dominio de planificación. Se explora un escenario basado en normas de circulación de tráfico para demostrar la usabilidad de nuestra propuesta. Se mostrará también como nuestro marco normativo se integra satisfactoriamente en una implementación existente de agentes BDI, 2APL. Para cada enfoque considerado, se presentan resultados experimentales cuantitativos y se ilustran las oportunidades para futuros trabajos de investigación.A mesura que els sistemes electrònics distribuïts creixen per incloure milers de components,des de nodes grid a peer-to-peer fins a serveis de la Web semàntica, aplicacions web o computació al núvol, la gestió d’aquests sistemes s’està convertint en un autèntic repte. Els enfocs moderns que asseguren el comportament apropiat de lesentitats individuals en sistemes distribuïts, que prové de la recerca en sistemes multiagents, utilitzen normes (o regulacions o polítiques) i/o protocols de comunicació perexpressar una capa diferent d’estats desitjats o no desitjats. Des de la perspectiva de l’individu, un agent necessita poder funcionar en un entorn on les normes actuïn coma restriccions de comportament o guies respecte al que és apropiat, no només per al individu sinó per a la comunitat.En la literatura el concepte de normes s’ha tractat des de diferents perspectives: com una regla o estàndard de comportament compartida pels membres d’un grup social, com una regla o estàndard autoritari pel qual alguna cosa és jutjada, aprovada o desaprovada,com estàndard del correcte i del incorrecte, bellesa i lletjor, veritat i falsedat, o inclús com un model del que hauria d’existir o ser seguit, o com una mitjana del que actualment existeix en un context donat. Actualment trobem en la literatura:1) alguns tractaments que connecten formalment els aspectes deòntics de les normes amb la seva operacionalització; 2) alguns tractaments que distingeixen adequadament entre normes abstractes i les seves (múltiples) instanciacions en temps real; 3) alguns exemples que formalitzen les semàntiques operacionals de manera que asseguren flexibilitaten la seva traducció a implementacions garantint interpretacions no ambigües de les normes; 4) alguns treballs adequats per a la monitorització de normes a nivell institucional i per al raonament basat en normes en agents individuals assegurant que ambdós estan alineats; 5) alguns treballs que exploren com les normes poden afectar el procés de presa de decisions d’un agent quan el procés inclou mecanismes de planificació en temps real per a raonament mitjans-finalitats. D’altra banda, actualment noexisteix cap enfoc que inclogui formalismes i implementacions cobrint els punts 1-5 a la vegada.Aquesta tesi presenta contribucions en les cinc àrees esmentades. Presentem una proposta per establir un enllaç entre la formalització d’una norma i els mecanismes emprats en la planificació basada en normes per tal de crear un mecanisme de raonament pràctic normatiu. Una manera d’aconseguir-ho és reduint les definicions de normes deòntiques a fórmules de lògica temporal les quals poden ser traduïdes asemàntiques de planificació operacional. Basant-nos en aquestes semàntiques, hem creat un mecanisme per donar suport al raonament normatiu pràctic que pot ser emprat per agents per produir i avaluar els seus plans. Hem construït un agent orientat a normes que pren en consideració durant la fase de generació de plans les normes operacionalitzades, utilitzant-les com a guia per decidir el futur curs d’acció de l’agent.Per tal de fer que les normes influenciïn la generació de plans, les nostres semàntiques operacionals de normes s’expressen com una extensió del domini de la planificació,actuant com una mena de restriccions temporals sobre les trajectòries (plans) computadespel planificador. Considerem dos enfocs per dur-ho a terme. Un implementant les semàntiques emprant planificació amb restriccions per mitjà de camins i l’altre traduint directament les normes en coneixement del domini a ser inclòs en el domini de planificació. Explorem un escenari basat en les normes de circulació de tràfic per demostrar la usabilitat de la nostra proposta. Mostrarem també com el nostre marc normatiu s’integra satisfactòriament en una implementació existent d’agentBDI, 2APL. Per cada enfoc considerat, presentem resultats experimentals quantitatius i il.lustrem les oportunitats per treballs de recerca futurs

Human-aware space sharing and navigation for an interactive robot

Les méthodes de planification de mouvements robotiques se sont développées à un rythme accéléré ces dernières années. L'accent a principalement été mis sur le fait de rendre les robots plus efficaces, plus sécurisés et plus rapides à réagir à des situations imprévisibles. En conséquence, nous assistons de plus en plus à l'introduction des robots de service dans notre vie quotidienne, en particulier dans les lieux publics tels que les musées, les centres commerciaux et les aéroports. Tandis qu'un robot de service mobile se déplace dans l'environnement humain, il est important de prendre en compte l'effet de son comportement sur les personnes qu'il croise ou avec lesquelles il interagit. Nous ne les voyons pas comme de simples machines, mais comme des agents sociaux et nous nous attendons à ce qu'ils se comportent de manière similaire à l'homme en suivant les normes sociétales comme des règles. Ceci a créé de nouveaux défis et a ouvert de nouvelles directions de recherche pour concevoir des algorithmes de commande de robot, qui fournissent des comportements de robot acceptables, lisibles et proactifs. Cette thèse propose une méthode coopérative basée sur l'optimisation pour la planification de trajectoire et la navigation du robot avec des contraintes sociales intégrées pour assurer des mouvements de robots prudents, conscients de la présence de l'être humain et prévisibles. La trajectoire du robot est ajustée dynamiquement et continuellement pour satisfaire ces contraintes sociales. Pour ce faire, nous traitons la trajectoire du robot comme une bande élastique (une construction mathématique représentant la trajectoire du robot comme une série de positions et une différence de temps entre ces positions) qui peut être déformée (dans l'espace et dans le temps) par le processus d'optimisation pour respecter les contraintes données. De plus, le robot prédit aussi les trajectoires humaines plausibles dans la même zone d'exploitation en traitant les chemins humains aussi comme des bandes élastiques. Ce système nous permet d'optimiser les trajectoires des robots non seulement pour le moment présent, mais aussi pour l'interaction entière qui se produit lorsque les humains et les robots se croisent les uns les autres. Nous avons réalisé un ensemble d'expériences avec des situations interactives humains-robots qui se produisent dans la vie de tous les jours telles que traverser un couloir, passer par une porte et se croiser sur de grands espaces ouverts. La méthode de planification coopérative proposée se compare favorablement à d'autres schémas de planification de la navigation à la pointe de la technique. Nous avons augmenté le comportement de navigation du robot avec un mouvement synchronisé et réactif de sa tête. Cela permet au robot de regarder où il va et occasionnellement de détourner son regard vers les personnes voisines pour montrer que le robot va éviter toute collision possible avec eux comme prévu par le planificateur. À tout moment, le robot pondère les multiples critères selon le contexte social et décide de ce vers quoi il devrait porter le regard. Grâce à une étude utilisateur en ligne, nous avons montré que ce mécanisme de regard complète efficacement le comportement de navigation ce qui améliore la lisibilité des actions du robot. Enfin, nous avons intégré notre schéma de navigation avec un système de supervision plus large qui peut générer conjointement des comportements du robot standard tel que l'approche d'une personne et l'adaptation de la vitesse du robot selon le groupe de personnes que le robot guide dans des scénarios d'aéroport ou de musée.The methods of robotic movement planning have grown at an accelerated pace in recent years. The emphasis has mainly been on making robots more efficient, safer and react faster to unpredictable situations. As a result we are witnessing more and more service robots introduced in our everyday lives, especially in public places such as museums, shopping malls and airports. While a mobile service robot moves in a human environment, it leaves an innate effect on people about its demeanor. We do not see them as mere machines but as social agents and expect them to behave humanly by following societal norms and rules. This has created new challenges and opened new research avenues for designing robot control algorithms that deliver human-acceptable, legible and proactive robot behaviors. This thesis proposes a optimization-based cooperative method for trajectoryplanning and navigation with in-built social constraints for keeping robot motions safe, human-aware and predictable. The robot trajectory is dynamically and continuously adjusted to satisfy these social constraints. To do so, we treat the robot trajectory as an elastic band (a mathematical construct representing the robot path as a series of poses and time-difference between those poses) which can be deformed (both in space and time) by the optimization process to respect given constraints. Moreover, we also predict plausible human trajectories in the same operating area by treating human paths also as elastic bands. This scheme allows us to optimize the robot trajectories not only for the current moment but for the entire interaction that happens when humans and robot cross each other's paths. We carried out a set of experiments with canonical human-robot interactive situations that happen in our everyday lives such as crossing a hallway, passing through a door and intersecting paths on wide open spaces. The proposed cooperative planning method compares favorably against other stat-of-the-art human-aware navigation planning schemes. We have augmented robot navigation behavior with synchronized and responsive movements of the robot head, making the robot look where it is going and occasionally diverting its gaze towards nearby people to acknowledge that robot will avoid any possible collision with them. At any given moment the robot weighs multiple criteria according to the social context and decides where it should turn its gaze. Through an online user study we have shown that such gazing mechanism effectively complements the navigation behavior and it improves legibility of the robot actions. Finally, we have integrated our navigation scheme with a broader supervision system which can jointly generate normative robot behaviors such as approaching a person and adapting the robot speed according to a group of people who the robot guides in airports or museums

Enabling Proactivity in Context-aware Middleware Systems by means of a Planning Framework based on HTN Planning

Today’s context-aware systems tend to be reactive or ‘pull’ based - the user requests or queries for some information and the system responds with the requested information. However, none of the systems anticipate the user’s intent and behavior, or take into account his current events and activities to pro-actively ‘push’ relevant information to the user. On the other hand, Proactive context-aware systems can predict and anticipate user intent and behavior, and act proactively on the users’ behalf without explicit requests from them. Two fundamental capabilities of such systems are: prediction and autonomy. In this paper, we address the second capability required by a context-aware system to act proactively i.e. acting autonomously without an explicit user request. To address it, we present a new paradigm for enabling proactivity in context-aware middleware systems by means of a Planning Framework based on HTN planning. We present the design of a Planning Framework within the infrastructure of our intelligent context-aware middleware called Rover II. We also implement this framework and evaluate its utility with several use cases. We also highlight the benefits of using such a framework in dynamic ubiquitous systems