Real-Time Systems and the

Aware Home

Anind K. DeyUbiquitous Computing

Future Computing Environments

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The Aware Home

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Description of Aware Home > 5000 sq. feet of lab space 2 independent & identical living floors

(3 bed/2 bath), full basement and attic for research flexibility

A variety of network connections to outside and within: Fiber to campus, ADSL from BellSouth,

WaveLAN, EchoStar satellites, FutureSmart wiring

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Floor Plans

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Living Laboratory for Ubicomp Build and understand a living

laboratory in an everyday setting that is aware of its occupants’ activities and supports the continuous connection of a small community.

More than home automation

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Contrast to Traditional Computing Implicit interaction as well as

explicit

Mobile users in changing environments

Uncontrolled environments

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Building Applications

M. Weiser: The whole point of ubiquitous computing, of course, is the applications.

House applications focused on 3 main aspects: elderly, kids, us

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Ubicomp in FCE

Capture and access: eClass, C2000

Context-awareness: Context Toolkit

Natural input and disambiguation: OOPS

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Overview of Applications in the Home Focused on context-awareness

Remote and local awareness of activities Health and security monitoring Support for privacy Control of appliances Support for carrying out activities: cooking,

etc.

As well as regular video-conferencing types of activities

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Real-Time Aspects

Mostly very soft requirements Security, medical support: harder

User’s perspective

Context: data acquisition, interpretation and disambiguation

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Context and Context-Awareness Focused on input Context: any information that can be

used to characterize the situation of an entity

Context-awareness General model of interactive computing Addresses subset of ubicomp problems

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Context-Aware Applications Tour guides (museums)

Travel assistants (Hertz NeverLost)

Personalization systems (myYahoo)

And even …

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Context Widgets

Responsible for acquiring and abstracting data from particular sensor, separation of concerns, storage

Widget

Sensor

Widget

Application Application

Sensor

ContextArchitecture Face

Recognition

LocationWidget

LocationWidget

In/Out Board

Smart Card Reader

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Context Interpreters

Convert or interpret context to higher level information

Context not available at appropriate level

Face Recognition

LocationWidget

LocationWidget

In/Out Board

Smart Card Reader

ID to NameInterpreter

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Context Aggregators

Collect context relevant to particular entities (recall definition)

Further separation, simplifies design

Face Recognition

LocationWidget

LocationWidget

In/Out Board

Smart Card Reader

ID to NameInterpreter

BuildingAggregator

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Context Toolkit Framework

Widget

Sensor

Widget

Application Application

Interpreter InterpreterAggregator

Sensor

ContextArchitecture

DiscovererService

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Conference Assistant

Slide

User Notes

Interest Control

Audio/VideoIndicator

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Slide text User notes

Retrievedslide

Query Interface

Schedule

context widgetsIdentity, Location, Activity

of People, Places, Things

Joe Smith context

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Conference Assistant Arch.

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Aware Home Applications

Focused on context-awareness Digital Family Portrait Intercom Reminders Privacy Mirror Interruption Support House Control and Security Gesture Pendant Robot Pets

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Digital Family Portrait

Abstract presentation of remote activity

Little real-time concerns

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Intercom

Allow family to communicate Co-located Distributed

Share information about status with “caller” Has to be available and delivered

within short time frame to be useful

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Ambiguous Context

speakersmicrophone

motion detector

keyboard

display

dock

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CybreMinder

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Monitoring

Monitor activity and interaction with devices: stove, stairs

Medical diagnosis

Privacy: indicate what’s being sensed to occupants

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Conclusions

Aware Home is a great testbed for context-aware and ubiquitous computing

Lots of real-time issues that cover the spectrum from soft to hard