32,549 research outputs found
Assistive technologies : short overview and trends
This paper gives a brief overview of currently existing assistive technologies for different kinds of disabilities. An elaborate discussion of all types of assistive technologies is beyond the scope of this paper. Assistive technologies have evolved dramatically in recent years and will continue to be further developed thanks to major progress in artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics, and other areas. Previously, assistive technologies were highly specialized and were often difficult or expensive to acquire. Today, however, many assistive technologies are included in mainstream products and services. An introduction and state of the art of assistive technologies are presented first. These are followed by an overview of technological trends in assistive technologies and a conclusion
AmIE: An Ambient Intelligent Environment for Assisted Living
In the modern world of technology Internet-of-things (IoT) systems strives to
provide an extensive interconnected and automated solutions for almost every
life aspect. This paper proposes an IoT context-aware system to present an
Ambient Intelligence (AmI) environment; such as an apartment, house, or a
building; to assist blind, visually-impaired, and elderly people. The proposed
system aims at providing an easy-to-utilize voice-controlled system to locate,
navigate and assist users indoors. The main purpose of the system is to provide
indoor positioning, assisted navigation, outside weather information, room
temperature, people availability, phone calls and emergency evacuation when
needed. The system enhances the user's awareness of the surrounding environment
by feeding them with relevant information through a wearable device to assist
them. In addition, the system is voice-controlled in both English and Arabic
languages and the information are displayed as audio messages in both
languages. The system design, implementation, and evaluation consider the
constraints in common types of premises in Kuwait and in challenges, such as
the training needed by the users. This paper presents cost-effective
implementation options by the adoption of a Raspberry Pi microcomputer,
Bluetooth Low Energy devices and an Android smart watch.Comment: 6 pages, 8 figures, 1 tabl
ENHANCING USERSâ EXPERIENCE WITH SMART MOBILE TECHNOLOGY
The aim of this thesis is to investigate mobile guides for use with smartphones. Mobile guides have been successfully used to provide information, personalisation and navigation for the user. The researcher also wanted to ascertain how and in what ways mobile guides can enhance users' experience.
This research involved designing and developing web based applications to run on smartphones. Four studies were conducted, two of which involved testing of the particular application. The applications tested were a museum mobile guide application and a university mobile guide mapping application. Initial testing examined the prototype work for the âChronology of His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiahâ application. The results were used to assess the potential of using similar mobile guides in Brunei Darussalamâs museums. The second study involved testing of the âKent LiveMapâ application for use at the University of Kent. Students at the university tested this mapping application, which uses crowdsourcing of information to provide live data. The results were promising and indicate that users' experience was enhanced when using the application.
Overall results from testing and using the two applications that were developed as part of this thesis show that mobile guides have the potential to be implemented in Brunei Darussalamâs museums and on campus at the University of Kent. However, modifications to both applications are required to fulfil their potential and take them beyond the prototype stage in order to be fully functioning and commercially viable
A survey on cyber security for smart grid communications
A smart grid is a new form of electricity network with high fidelity power-flow control, self-healing, and energy reliability and energy security using digital communications and control technology. To upgrade an existing power grid into a smart grid, it requires significant dependence on intelligent and secure communication infrastructures. It requires security frameworks for distributed communications, pervasive computing and sensing technologies in smart grid. However, as many of the communication technologies currently recommended to use by a smart grid is vulnerable in cyber security, it could lead to unreliable system operations, causing unnecessary expenditure, even consequential disaster to both utilities and consumers. In this paper, we summarize the cyber security requirements and the possible vulnerabilities in smart grid communications and survey the current solutions on cyber security for smart grid communications. © 2012 IEEE
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
TechNews digests: Jan - Nov 2009
TechNews is a technology, news and analysis service aimed at anyone in the education sector keen to stay informed about technology developments, trends and issues. TechNews focuses on emerging technologies and other technology news. TechNews service : digests september 2004 till May 2010 Analysis pieces and News combined publish every 2 to 3 month
An Empirical Evaluation On Vibrotactile Feedback For Wristband System
With the rapid development of mobile computing, wearable wrist-worn is
becoming more and more popular. But the current vibrotactile feedback patterns
of most wrist-worn devices are too simple to enable effective interaction in
nonvisual scenarios. In this paper, we propose the wristband system with four
vibrating motors placed in different positions in the wristband, providing
multiple vibration patterns to transmit multi-semantic information for users in
eyes-free scenarios. However, we just applied five vibrotactile patterns in
experiments (positional up and down, horizontal diagonal, clockwise circular,
and total vibration) after contrastive analyzing nine patterns in a pilot
experiment. The two experiments with the same 12 participants perform the same
experimental process in lab and outdoors. According to the experimental
results, users can effectively distinguish the five patterns both in lab and
outside, with approximately 90% accuracy (except clockwise circular vibration
of outside experiment), proving these five vibration patterns can be used to
output multi-semantic information. The system can be applied to eyes-free
interaction scenarios for wrist-worn devices.Comment: 10 pages
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