Control of the Home Network Pebbles for Autohan and Oxygen Dr David Greaves University of Cambridge Umar Saif : MIT LCS David Milward : Linguamatics UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

Slides Overview  UPnP.  Missing Aspects with UPnP.  Rule Based System Design  Current Situation

UPnP  Universal Plug and Play: UPnP  Allows devices to describe themselves  Allows remote control of devices  Allows remote inquiry of devices  Devices may be Hardware or Totally Soft  E.g. A DVD player  E.g. an electronic Piggy Bank  Maturing Today.  Uses XML,WWW technology. UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

Universal PnP Intel’s Free Software Kit (Win or Linux)

Device Componentisation  Devices contain components which may be further devices  Device makes each of its major components into a separate resource available over the network.  Six main elements. User Interface Network interface(s) Local store (big or small) Execution resources Specialised hardware resource Canned native application Each component can describe and register itself using XML

Device Modeling Example: TV  TV set contains the following separate devices which can be individually useful in a networked home: RF Tuner Colour Display NiCam Audio Decoder Power Amplifier Surround sound Decoder IR Receiver Teletext Decoder MPEG Decoder Each of these devices has source and sink media types which need to be modeled. Each device has a user interface whose controls and indicators need to be modeled.

What is missing ? UPnP provides the API But where are the application programs to exercise it? That’s where we come in! Building On UPnP UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

Supply of Application Code  We envisage four sources of apps:  1. Base function of device.  2. Built-in ROM code works when neighbours find themselves on the same network.  3. Programs loaded from elsewhere but written by experts.  4. Rule programs that are written inside the home.  Seamless integration or real-time control and programming.  Also, all apps export their SEMANTICs.

Registery Stored Components  Identity of House  Room information  Device information  People information  People’s preferences  Radio and TV channels  Programme schedules  Device names and locations (including robots).  Piggybank and Ecash  Programs  Consistency rules  Address books  etc…..

Software `Devices’ Expected  Registry  Rule Interpreter  Media Store  Speech Recogniser  Universal IR  Speech+IR = Gesture  Phone Exchange  Internet Portal A set of software components we will find in the automated home  Authentication unit  Piggybank  ASP/.NET/CGI posix

Pebbles Project Architecture  Development of API is our goal.  Cambridge UK - a single space  E.G. a Home  E.G. a Spaceship.  MIT LCS - in the large with federated rule engines... Rule-Based Applications (Goals) Execution Resources (Pebbles) API Our API in Cambridge UK is UPnP

Goals and Rules Examples  Create a video call to Peter.  When Lulu comes home, play Thriller on all loudspeakers downstairs.  Jonny is not allowed to spend more than 2 pounds per day on pay-per-listen.  Fire Alarm must mute all music sources.  The front gates must always be remotely openable by some method or other.

AutoHAN Controller On A Stick  A single controller for each home  All apps are stored in rule script form on the controller  All apps are executed by one engine (RBS)  All I/O is via UPnP over the network Registry Application Scripts Execution Platform (RBS) Applications Platform OS and Network I/O Ethernet etc API

AutoHAN AppScript Rehydration Running Application Scripts RBS Engine Core Imperative command VM GENA Subscription Arbiter DHAN registery lookup Application Loader Automatic Checker GENA network events HTTP Binder or Re-hydrator

Current Situation  Project Refunded 1st October 2003  A large amount of UPnP bits and pieces from previous AutoHAN work.  Speech recogniser and media cubes components working  Prototype RBS being built by Tope  Hand-coded rules for TiVo etc exist  PhD completed by Hague on `Lingua Franca’

The End  Thankyou ! David Greaves University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory

Network-Ready CD Player

Prototype IR Cubes

A cube “modifies” the IR beam VCR Universal Remote Controller Tomorrow cube

IR controller with Voice Input Remote Controller with microphone When I press THIS BUTTON I want THIS CD PLAYER to play THE CD IN IT NOW. DECT basestation Voice Recogniser soft device Events to RBS CD Player