Potentially transformational ideas in several applications of human and computer interaction form the motivation for this work. It is targeted towards a systematic approach to the design of systems with complex, intelligent and interactive exchange of information between a system and the environment it is meant to monitor, and gather knowledge about. The Pahl and Beitz systematic design method is modified with the inclusion of generic sub-systems from Living Systems Theory, modeling and simulation tools and other adaptations within the context of the validation square to synthesize a design method for the design of systems with intelligent and interactive information flow. The validation of the proposed design method is carried out with the aid of an example wherein a motion capture system is designed based on the Nintendo Wii Remote(TM). Results include an evaluation of the performance of a prototype as well as the design method itself in the context of the requirements that the method must fulfill.

Thesis (Ph.D)--Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009. / Committee Chair: Rusell M. Mersereau; Committee Member: Biing Hwang (Fred) Juang; Committee Member: Christopher E. Heil; Committee Member: Georgia Vachtsevanos; Committee Member: James H. McClellan. Part of the SMARTech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Collection.

Weighted granular best matching algorithm is proposed for the operation of context matching in context-aware computing systems. New algorithm deals with the subjective, fuzzy and multidimensional characteristics of contextual information by using weights and a granular structure for contextual information. The proposal is applied on a case: CAPRA &ndash / Context-Aware Personal Reminder Agent tool to show the applicability of the new context matching algorithm. The obtained outputs showed that proposed algorithm produces the results which are more sensitive to the user&rsquo / s intention, more adaptive to the characteristics of the contextual information and applicable to a current Context-aware system.

Wireless sensor and actor networks are used in situations where interaction is required between a network and the environment in which the network is deployed. This research studies the functioning of a single mobile actor deployed in a sparsely connected network. When deployed in a sparsely connected network, an actor has to do more than acting. It has to perform the additional duties of an event collector - collecting events from the naturally occurring clusters - so that it can fulfill its primary obligation as an actor. The path taken by a mobile actor node is generated by a mobility model. The existing random mobility models are non-intelligent mobility models. While they may bring about a chance meeting between an actor and an event, there is no guarantee that these meetings will actually happen. This motivates the development of intelligent mobility models for the actor node, which will generate paths that are reflective of the network in which the actor is deployed. In this thesis, intelligent mobility models for the actor node were developed using the inherent clustering information of a sparsely connected network. These models were applied to an actor node in networks of varying sparseness and the following conclusions were reached: (i) Existing random mobility models are unsuitable for an actor in a sparsely connected network. (ii) High probability of events can be sensed when a sparsely connected network is used. (iii) 100% event detection by the actor node is possible at higher speeds. (iv) When the single actor functioned both as an event collector and as an actor, the number of events acted upon by the actor was very close to the number of events acted upon by an actor in a fully connected network. (v) The Correlation Theory developed in this research suggests using a combination of the intelligent mobility models to obtain the best performance results under all circumstances. (vi) Early detection of events can be supported where it is required. All of the above conclusions justify the deployment of a single actor and a sparsely connected network, either individually or as a combination.

Ubiquitous computing application developers have limited options for a practical activity and location sensing technology that is easy-to-deploy and cost-effective. In this dissertation, I have developed a class of activity monitoring systems called infrastructure mediated sensing (IMS), which provides a whole-house solution for sensing activity and the location of people and objects. Infrastructure mediated sensing leverages existing home infrastructure (e.g, electrical systems, air conditioning systems, etc.) to mediate the transduction of events. In these systems, infrastructure activity is used as a proxy for a human activity involving the infrastructure. A primary goal of this type of system is to reduce economic, aesthetic, installation, and maintenance barriers to adoption by reducing the cost and complexity of deploying and maintaining the activity sensing hardware. I discuss the design, development, and applications of various IMS-based activity and location sensing technologies that leverage the following existing infrastructures: wireless Bluetooth signals, power lines, and central heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. In addition, I show how these technologies facilitate automatic and unobtrusive sensing and data collection for researchers or application developers interested in conducting large-scale in-situ location-based studies in the home.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-07-29T14:57:51Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 dissertacao-rodrigohs.pdf: 1383844 bytes, checksum: b3fda2012ce5a20dc390677f308520e3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-05-29 / Context models that describe dynamic context-aware scenarios usually need to be frequently updated. Some examples of situations that motivate these updates are the appearance of new services and context providers, the mobility of the entities described in these models, among others. Generally, updates on models imply redevelopment of the architectural components of context-aware systems based on these models. However, as these updates in dynamic scenarios tend to be more frequent, it is desirable that they occur at runtime. This dissertation presents an infrastructure for dynamic management of context models based on the fundamentals of complex event processing, or CEP. This infrastructure allows the fundamental abstractions from which a model is built to be updated at runtime. As these updates can impact systems based on the updated models, this dissertation identifies and analyzes these impacts, which are reproduced in a case study that aims to evaluate the proposed infrastructure by demonstrating how it deals with the impacts mentioned. / Modelos contextuais que descrevem cenários de computação sensível ao contexto dinâmicos normalmente precisam ser frequentemente atualizados. Alguns exemplos de situações que motivam essas atualizações são o surgimento de novos serviços e provedores de informações contextuais, a mobilidade das entidades descritas nesses modelos, dentre outros. Normalmente, atualizações em modelos implicam em redesenvolvimento dos componentes arquiteturais dos sistemas sensíveis ao contexto baseados nesses modelos. Porém, como em cenários dinâmicos essas atualizações tendem a ser mais frequentes, é desejável que elas ocorram em tempo de execução. Essa dissertação apresenta uma infraestrutura para gerenciamento dinâmico de modelos de contexto baseada nos fundamentos de processamento complexo de eventos, ou CEP. Essa infraestrutura permite que as abstrações fundamentais a partir das quais um modelo é construído sejam atualizadas em tempo de execução. Como essas atualizações podem causar impactos nos sistemas baseados nos modelos atualizados, essa dissertação identifica e analisa esses impactos, os quais são reproduzidos em um estudo de caso que tem como finalidade avaliar a infraestrutura proposta através da demonstração de como ela lida com os impactos mencionados.

[pt] A difusão das redes sem fio IEEE 802.11 e o avanço das técnicas de posicionamento baseadas na força de sinal de rádio frequência (RF) (e.g., sensores, algoritmos de triangulação, etc.) têm motivado o desenvolvimento de aplicações e serviços sensíveis ao contexto e sua localização (Location Based Services). Essas aplicações oferecem vários benefícios para os usuários finais, por exemplo, adaptação às limitações dos dispositivos e da rede sem fio, acesso às informações de localização, ou a capacidade de enviar notificações baseadas na localização ou na proximidade entre os usuários (e.g., Geocaching). Entretanto, há dois desafios principais relacionados ao desenvolvimento e uso de aplicações sensíveis ao contexto: a complexidade em desenvolver os serviços de provisão de contexto e a necessidade de manter a privacidade da informação de contexto (e.g., localização) do usuário. Para auxiliar o desenvolvimento de aplicações sensíveis ao contexto, projetamos e implementamos alguns serviços que constituem o núcleo de uma arquitetura de provisão de contexto, chamada MoCA (Mobile Collaboration Architecture). Esses serviços implementam a coleta, o processamento e a difusão da informação de contexto através de interfaces de comunicação síncronas e baseadas em eventos. A MoCA serviu de base para o desenvolvimento da nossa pesquisa sobre privacidade na qual projetamos um serviço que auxilia o usuário no controle de privacidade das suas informações de contexto, em especial, da sua informação de localização. Como parte do nosso trabalho, definimos um modelo conceitual que serviu de base para o desenvolvimento do serviço de privacidade proposto (a ser utilizado por uma comunidade de usuários) e discutimos alguns requisitos que devem ser levados em conta no projeto de um serviço deste gênero. A maioria destes requisitos delinearam o projeto e implementação do Context Privacy Service (CoPS). Este serviço foi integrado aos serviços de provisão de contexto da arquitetura MoCA. / [en] The widespread dissemination of IEEE 802.11 networks and the enhancement of positioning techniques based on RF signal strength (e.g., sensors, positioning triangulation algorithms, etc) have fostered the development of location-based and context-aware services and applications. These applications offer several benefits to the end-users, e.g. adaptation to the device and wireless network limitations, access to location- specific information, or the ability to send location-specific notifications to other users (e.g., Geocaching). However, there are two main challenges concerning the development and use of context-aware applications: the complexity in developing context provisioning services and the need to guarantee the privacy of the users' context information (e.g., their location). In order to support the development of context-aware applications, we have designed and implemented some services that constitute the core of a context provisioning architecture called MoCA (Mobile Collaboration Architecture). These services implement the gathering, processing and diffusion of context information through synchronous and event-based communication interfaces. MoCA architecture has been used as a basis to the development of our research about privacy in which we have designed a service that aids the end-user in defining the privacy level for his/her contextual information, and in particular for his/her location information. As part of our work, we define the conceptual model underlying our privacy control service (targeted at a community of users) and discuss the most important requirements that should be conside- red in the design of such a service. Most of these requirements have guided the design and implementation of the Context Privacy Service (CoPS). This service has been integrated to the context provisioning services of the MoCA middleware.

[pt] Diversos sistemas e aplicações são capazes de identificar um determinado contexto de uso em tempo real, detectando informações para antecipar situações e otimizar sua interface. Esses sistemas que agem de forma contextual e, muitas das vezes, proativa pertencem à área da Computação ciente de contexto. O aplicativo Google para sistemas Android e IOS possui um serviço de assistente virtual para dispositivos móveis que utiliza dados da conta do usuário obtidos através dos serviços Google, além de dados do próprio dispositivo. O assistente é capaz de identificar hábitos, antever necessidades e oferecer cards de informações antes mesmo que sejam pedidos pelo usuário. Pertencendo ao campo da computação ciente de contexto, o aplicativo Google foi eleito como objeto de estudo e avaliado sob o viés da engenharia semiótica. Através da interface do aplicativo, analisou-se a qualidade da comunicação designer-usuário, tendo por objetivo verificar não apenas a eficiência da assistência virtual oferecida pelo sistema, mas também a autonomia do usuário e a flexibilidade do aplicativo diante de suas necessidades. / [en] Many modern systems and applications are capable of analising the contexts of use in real time, identifying key information to anticipate upcoming actions and optimize their interfaces. Those systems that work in a contextual manner and, usually, in a proactive way, belong to the Context Aware Computing area. The Google App for Android and iOS devices has a virtual assistant service that collects data obtained from different sources associated to the user account and links them to data from the user device. The assistant can identify habits, anticipate probable needs and offer information cards even before the user asks for them. Being part of the Context Aware Computing field, the Google App was elected as study object and was evaluated under the Semiotics Engineering bias. From the application s interface, the quality of the user-designer communication was analysed so, not only the virtual assistant efficiency could be evaluated, but also the user autonomy and the application flexibility according to his needs.

No description available.

This thesis represents Bayesian joint audio-visual tracking for the 3D locations of multiple people and a current speaker in a real conference environment. To achieve this objective, it focuses on several different research interests, such as acoustic-feature detection, visual-feature detection, a non-linear Bayesian framework, data association, and sensor fusion. As acoustic-feature detection, time-delay-of-arrival~(TDOA) estimation is used for multiple source detection. Localization performance using TDOAs is also analyzed according to different configurations of microphones. As a visual-feature detection, Viola-Jones face detection is used to initialize the locations of unknown multiple objects. Then, a corner feature, based on the results from the Viola-Jones face detection, is used for motion detection for robust objects. Simple point-to-line correspondences between multiple cameras using fundamental matrices are used to determine which features are more robust. As a method for data association and sensor fusion, Monte-Carlo JPDAF and a data association with IPPF~(DA-IPPF) are implemented in the framework of particle filtering. Three different tracking scenarios of acoustic source tracking, visual source tracking, and joint acoustic-visual source tracking are represented using the proposed algorithms. Finally the real-time implementation of this joint acoustic-visual tracking system using a PC, four cameras, and six microphones is addressed with two parts of system implementation and real-time processing.