Internet of robotic things : converging sensing/actuating, hypoconnectivity, artificial intelligence and IoT Platforms

The Internet of Things (IoT) concept is evolving rapidly and influencing newdevelopments in various application domains, such as the Internet of MobileThings (IoMT), Autonomous Internet of Things (A-IoT), Autonomous Systemof Things (ASoT), Internet of Autonomous Things (IoAT), Internetof Things Clouds (IoT-C) and the Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT) etc.that are progressing/advancing by using IoT technology. The IoT influencerepresents new development and deployment challenges in different areassuch as seamless platform integration, context based cognitive network integration,new mobile sensor/actuator network paradigms, things identification(addressing, naming in IoT) and dynamic things discoverability and manyothers. The IoRT represents new convergence challenges and their need to be addressed, in one side the programmability and the communication ofmultiple heterogeneous mobile/autonomous/robotic things for cooperating,their coordination, configuration, exchange of information, security, safetyand protection. Developments in IoT heterogeneous parallel processing/communication and dynamic systems based on parallelism and concurrencyrequire new ideas for integrating the intelligent “devices”, collaborativerobots (COBOTS), into IoT applications. Dynamic maintainability, selfhealing,self-repair of resources, changing resource state, (re-) configurationand context based IoT systems for service implementation and integrationwith IoT network service composition are of paramount importance whennew “cognitive devices” are becoming active participants in IoT applications.This chapter aims to be an overview of the IoRT concept, technologies,architectures and applications and to provide a comprehensive coverage offuture challenges, developments and applications

Emulating Home Automation Installations through Component-based Web Technology

The Internet of Things mechanisms enable the management of home environments since they can be developed as IoT based information systems. From standard smart homes to automated buildings, including other kind of domotics and inmotics solutions, every system must be tested and validated before its installation. The current tools offered by IoT and home automation vendors lack in emulation features close to the real behavior of the devices. In many cases, delaying the verification actions until the hardware is acquired and installed may cause some drawbacks, for example, from the economic point of view. This paper presents a solution for emulating home automation environments which are based on the KNX standard and can be represented by architectures of devices. The emulation consist of developing virtual implementations of real devices which operate and communicate through web technology. The technology implementing these virtual devices allows us to develop components which can provide different type of data related to the installation (audio, video, text, animations, images, etc.). The architectures can be managed using web services and their behavior can be tested through web user interfaces showing the mentioned data. Furthermore, virtual and physical devices are connected to validate the interoperability between the real installation and the emulation

Assistive Awareness in Smart Grids

Peer Reviewe

An End-to-End Conversational Style Matching Agent

We present an end-to-end voice-based conversational agent that is able to engage in naturalistic multi-turn dialogue and align with the interlocutor's conversational style. The system uses a series of deep neural network components for speech recognition, dialogue generation, prosodic analysis and speech synthesis to generate language and prosodic expression with qualities that match those of the user. We conducted a user study (N=30) in which participants talked with the agent for 15 to 20 minutes, resulting in over 8 hours of natural interaction data. Users with high consideration conversational styles reported the agent to be more trustworthy when it matched their conversational style. Whereas, users with high involvement conversational styles were indifferent. Finally, we provide design guidelines for multi-turn dialogue interactions using conversational style adaptation

Overcoming barriers and increasing independence: service robots for elderly and disabled people

This paper discusses the potential for service robots to overcome barriers and increase independence of elderly and disabled people. It includes a brief overview of the existing uses of service robots by disabled and elderly people and advances in technology which will make new uses possible and provides suggestions for some of these new applications. The paper also considers the design and other conditions to be met for user acceptance. It also discusses the complementarity of assistive service robots and personal assistance and considers the types of applications and users for which service robots are and are not suitable

Customizing And Building The Linux Kernel To Control Appliance Actuators And Sensors In Domotics

This thesis will explain the use of currently existing technology in a “smart house†subproject that may provide a possible alternative to the current options that the elderly disabled have, and how the Linux kernel is modified, built and downloaded onto the Ml405 Evaluation Platform to control appliance actuators and sensors

Voice controlled audiobook reader software for visually impaired

This thesis results in a functional proof-of-concept level application that will help Pratsam Oy Ab to determine if voice-controlled audiobook player developed for Google Home device has potential to be a quality product. This thesis describes the development and the research of functional system that could be used as a starting point, in case it would be developed into a full product. Before committing to a product development, software companies might want to test if the product concept is viable. The concept viability can be verified with research into possible development problems and with proof-of-concept level software. The proof-of-concept can explore if the product can be built at all, and if the quality would be high enough, so that it results in a profitable product. In this product concept the user would use voice to control and to play Daisy 2.02 format audiobooks, which is an audiobook format developed for visually impaired. The audiobook reading software would be developed for Google Home device without a visual user interface. Main technologies of the thesis are voice user interface, speech recognition, text-to-speech technologies, Google cloud platform, cloud-based MySQL database, Java REST API backend and a Java console application to parse data from Daisy audiobook files into the database. The proof-of-concept period did not fully prove the viability of the concept. Google however has given clues that the required features would be added later, which could make it worth it to start developing the concept further

Implementing scripted conversations by means of smart assistants

Financiado para publicación en acceso aberto: Universidade de Vigo/CISUGSmart assistants are among the most popular technological devices at home. With a built-in voice-based user interface, they provide access to a broad portfolio of online services and information, and constitute the central element of state-of-the-art home automation systems. This work discusses the challenges addressed and the solutions adopted for the design and implementation of scripted conversations by means of off-the-shelf smart assistants. Scripted conversations play a fundamental role in many application fields, such as call center facilities, retail customer services, rapid prototyping, role-based training or the management of neuropsychiatric disorders. To illustrate this proposal, an actual implementation of the phone version of the Montreal cognitive assessment test as an Amazon's Alexa skill is described as a proof-of-concept.Agencia Estatal de Investigo | Ref. PID2020-115137RB-I00Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades | Ref. FPU19/0198