Improved multi-user interaction in a smart environment through a preference-based conflict resolution virtual assistant

In this work we will examine and develop a system that can assist people in Activities of Daily Life (ADL). This study focuses on resolving conflicts for the requests from different users’ profiles, for instance - elderly, adult and young. The objective of the system is to present a dialogue manager which is able to detect multi-user semantic conflict and to resolve the conflict for improved dialogue informing about its decisions using a system interface Avatar. The system is also able to prioritize requests that occurred among the services of multiple home appliances, as well as to deal with conflicting entities involving a single device. We investigated whether the multi-user context awareness by a Virtual Assistant adds value to the Smart Home concept in recognizing multi-user conflicts dynamically. This work has proposed a preference based method for resolving conflict and evaluated the developed system in a smart home environmen

Context aware virtual assistant with case-based conflict resolution in multi-user smart home environment

In this work we will examine and develop a Virtual Assistant that is used as a control interface of the Smart Home environment in the Middlesex University laboratory. Specifically, the system is constructed to give multiple users an ability to control appliances by voice or text commands. The main purpose of the research is to create an user friendly interface with adaptive context aware Case-Based conflict resolution system. In addition, Artificial Neural Networks were used to classify user inputs to create a natural dialogue. Further, a set of random double-blinded evaluation tests were established with general positive results in terms of interface justification