677 research outputs found
An Ontology Based Approach Towards A Universal Description Framework for Home Networks
Current home networks typically involve two or more machines sharing network resources. The vision for the home network has grown from a simple computer network, to every day appliances embedded with network capabilities. In this environment devices and services within the home can interoperate, regardless of protocol
or platform. Network clients can discover required resources by performing network discovery over component descriptions. Common approaches to this discovery process involve simple matching of keywords or attribute/value pairings.
Interest emerging from the Semantic Web community has led to ontology languages being applied to network domains, providing a logical and semantically rich approach to both describing and discovering network components. In much of the existing work within this domain, developers have focused on defining new description frameworks in isolation from existing protocol frameworks and vocabularies.
This work proposes an ontology-based description framework which takes the
ontology approach to the next step, where existing description frameworks are in-
corporated into the ontology-based framework, allowing discovery mechanisms to
cover multiple existing domains. In this manner, existing protocols and networking
approaches can participate in semantically-rich discovery processes. This framework
also includes a system architecture developed for the purpose of reconciling existing
home network solutions with the ontology-based discovery process.
This work also describes an implementation of the approach and is deployed within a home-network environment. This implementation involves existing home networking frameworks, protocols and components, allowing the claims of this work to be examined and evaluated from a ‘real-world’ perspective
Concerto: An Input Widget Framework for Multi-modal and Multi-device Environments
ユビキタス環境の実現により,多種多様な入力デバイスを用いたサービスとのインタラクションが可能になる.しかし,新たな入力デバイスをサービスに適用する度に,新たな開発コストが生じる.また,入力デバイスとサービスの接続をユーザの状況に合わせて動的に再構成することは困難である.そこで本論文では,ユビキタス環境における入力デバイスとサービスの柔軟な接続を実現するアプリケーションフレームワーク"Concerto"を提案する.Concertoは,入力デバイスとサービスの間に標準的で抽象的なインタフェースMeta Inputを提供し,それぞれの独立した開発と柔軟な接続を実現する.また,コンポーネントを動的に再結合する機構を提供し,サービスに対する入力の形態をユーザの状況に応じて動的に変更することを可能にする.修士論
An Online Environmental Approach to Service Interaction Management in Home Automation
Home automation is maturing with the increased deployment of networks and
intelligent devices in the home. Along with new protocols and devices, new
software services will emerge and work together releasing the full potential of
networked consumer devices. Services may include home security, climate control
or entertainment. With such extensive interworking the phenomenon known as
service interaction, or feature interaction, appears. The problem occurs when
services interfere with one another causing unexpected or undesirable outcomes.
The main goal of this work is to detect undesired interactions between devices
and services while allowing positive interactions between services and devices.
If the interaction is negative, the approach should be able to handle it in an
appropriate way.
Being able to carry out interaction detection in the home poses certain challenges.
Firstly, the devices and services are provided by a number of vendors and will
be using a variety of protocols. Secondly, the configuration will not be fixed,
the network will change as devices join and leave. Services may also change and
adapt to user needs and to devices available at runtime. The developed approach
is able to work with such challenges.
Since the goal of the automated home is to make life simpler for the occupant,
the approach should require minimal user intervention.
With the above goals, an approach was developed which tackles the problem.
Whereas previous approaches solving service interaction have focused on the
service, the technique presented here concentrates on the devices and their surrounds,
as some interactions occur through conflicting effects on the environment.
The approach introduces the concept of environmental variables. A variable may
be room temperature, movement or perhaps light. Drawing inspiration from
the Operating Systems domain, locks are used to control access to the devices
and environmental variables. Using this technique, undesirable interactions are
avoided. The inclusion of the environment is a key element of this approach as
many interactions can happen indirectly, through the environment.
Since the configuration of a home’s devices and services is continually changing,
developing an off-line solution is not practical. Therefore, an on-line approach in
the form of an interaction manager has been developed. It is the manager’s role
to detect interactions.
The approach was shown to work successfuly. The manager was able to successfully
detect interactions and prevent negative interactions from occurring.
Interactions were detected at both device and service level. The approach is flexible:
it is protocol independent, services are unaware of the manager, and the
manager can cope with new devices and services joining the network. Further,
there is little user intervention required for the approach to operate
Interacting with Smart Environments: Users, Interfaces, and Devices
A Smart Environment is an environment enriched with disappearing devices, acting together to form an “intelligent entity”. In such environments, the computing power pervades the space where the user lives, so it becomes particularly important to investigate the user’s perspective in interacting with her surrounding. Interaction, in fact, occurs when a human performs some kind of activity using any computing technology: in this case, the computing technology has an intelligence of its own and can potentially be everywhere. There is no well-defined interaction situation or context, and interaction can happen casually or accidentally.
The objective of this dissertation is to improve the interaction between such complex and different entities: the human and the Smart Environment. To reach this goal, this thesis presents four different and innovative approaches to address some of the identified key challenges. Such approaches, then, are validated with four corresponding software solutions, integrated with a Smart Environment, that I have developed and tested with end-users. Taken together, the proposed solutions enable a better interaction between diverse users and their intelligent environments, provide a solid set of requirements, and can serve as a baseline for further investigation on this emerging topic
Development of a virtual personal video recorder based on a set top box
Estágio realizado na Fraunhofer Portugal ResearchTese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores (Major Telecomunicações). Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 200
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
- …