Earticle

This paper presents a component-oriented programming model and middleware support services for building ubiquitous computing (UbiComp) applications that are composed out of smart objects on demand. Applications are realized as graphs representing smart objects and their services binding. Services are provided through high-level abstractions called plugs with semantically rich interfaces that allow them to be discovered and invoked dynamically. Our middleware supports the integration of heterogeneous smart objects by implementing a high level interaction model suited to the end-user and providing dynamic discovery, synthesis and binding of services. In this way we can deploy UbiComp applications that adapt to the dynamics of an Ambient Intelligence (AmI) environment. A smart home application that employees everyday augmented objects is used to illustrate the approach. We give implementation details with an emphasis to the compositional aspects and provide a scalability analysis for the service discovery process.

This paper introduces a novel application area of smart objects, changing users’ behavior. By analyzing user contexts acquired by smart objects, applications provide users with appropriate feedbacks to change their behavior. This study demonstrates a concept called ambient lifestyle feedback systems to be used to motivate people to change their undesirable habits to improve their lifestyle. We present three case studies of ambient lifestyle feedback systems, and discuss some findings to design persuasive applications using smart objects. We also discuss future directions of the study.

Automatic Data Capture and RFID technologies (Radio Frequency IDentification) can be found in many industrial applications, mostly for product identification and traceability in the supply chain. In this paper, we suggest a methodology supported by an environment in which an RFID-tagged product is transformed into a smart object with embedded services and capable of acting by itself and conducting its destiny along its lifecycle. We use the RFID technology to assure automatic identification and communication with a product and UPnP technology (Universal Plug and Play) to allow developing product-to-process interaction, product-to-product interaction, product-to-environment and product-to-user interactions. The paper proposes a methodology based on UPnP Services that aims to give to the product the capabilities to analyze and to control its lifecycle behavior. Thus, a product can analyze each stage in the supply chain, to control its needs and to avoid the critical situations. The presented work proposes a methodology for RFID-based Smart Object design based on product’s service modeling. The merging of RFID technology with UPnP framework offers the opportunity to design and implement smart object capabilities on products within the supply chain and manufacturing areas.

Humanoid and walking robots have been widely developed and their use in human environments is not far out of reach. The main problems in practical applications of machine walking are energy consumption, complex control and design, and high cost. The main feasible indoor application of a walking machine is that of a humanoid robot as a companion, nurse, guide, or information desk or reception clerk. In a smart object system environment, such as a smart house where all objects are interconnected, a humanoid robot can provide services for the centralized host or gateway server of the house. It is a mobile system already equipped with sensors, controllers, manipulators (hands) and a communication system. From the features of humanoid robots and of the smart object systems, a new direction of research could emerge embracing parts of both fields. In the interest of furthering the capabilities of walking robots, we designed an approach to further the capability of walking robots. We built a four-legged passive-dynamic walking machine with its inner and outer legs connected rigidly two by two, making it equivalent to a biped machine in terms of dynamics. We conducted our experiments with two different knee designs. Both mechanisms were designed in an attempt to create a simpler and easier-to-adjust knee-locking mechanism. We conducted a series of experiments in which we counted the steps the walker made while walking down an incline and compared the results achieved with the two different knee-locking mechanisms. We also performed a walking cycle investigation of a person walking casually down the same slope used for the walker experiments, calculated the average time intervals within one cycle and made a comparison between the test subject and our walker.

This paper proposes a smart object event modeling language. By attaching sensor nodes to everyday objects, users can augment the objects digitally and apply the objects into various services. When creating such smart object services, users should define events, such as beverage of a cup turns cold or someone sits down on a chair, using physical values from sensors. The most common event definition for end-users is simply describing threshold of sensor values and boolean operation. When they want to define more complex events, such as multiple people sit down on chairs or a user starts to study using a pen and a notebook, they need to use a programming language. To define such complex event easily without complex programming language, we present a new event description language called SOEML based on temporal relation among simple events. We also provide users a visual interface to support users defining or reusing events easily.

In this article, we propose an augmented book cover and a bookmark as means for implicit interaction with a book. Implicit interaction is a style of human-computer interaction, in which a user’s explicit command is not required to control a system. The augmented items sense their state of use by accelerometers and detect page-flipping events. Accumulation of the events is utilized by an application, a Virtual Illustration System, to estimate the current page number. Finally, the number identifies corresponding multimedia contents. Thus, a user reads a book in an ordinal way, and at the same time, her context is implicitly captured and given to an application as an input. The performance of page-flipping detection and the usability of the devices are evaluated. In addition, an evaluation of the interruptive nature of the presentation is carried out using real contents. The performance of the virtual illustration system itself is also tested.