1. How to Build Smart Appliances?
Babak Youssefzadeh
Computer Science Engineering
University of Texas at Arlington
12/2/2018
Babak Youssefzadeh

2. Smart Appliances?
Smart Appliances are characterized as devices that are attentive to their environment.
They are devices that are not ignorant about their environment and context of their usage.
12/2/2018
Babak Youssefzadeh

3. Topics Covered Context
Ideas for capturing information to approximate context
Mechanisms and Methods
Building Applications
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Babak Youssefzadeh

4. Context-Aware Devices
In the 90’s, context-aware devices were synonymous to location-aware devices.
In the Technology for Enabled Awareness (TEA) project, Context-awareness is defined as Knowledge about the user’s and device’s state including surroundings, situation and location.
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Babak Youssefzadeh

5. Real Situations
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6. Capturing Data Type of Sensors: Light sensors Cameras Microphones
Temperature
Air pressure
Location
Motion Detectors
Accelerometers
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Babak Youssefzadeh

7. Capturing Data (cont’)
Accelerometers
Inclination
Motion
Acceleration
Examples
Mercury switches
Angular sensors
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Babak Youssefzadeh

8. Capturing Data (cont’)
Location Sensors
Position, proximity location and collocation of users, devices and environment.
Examples
GPS
Active Badge
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Babak Youssefzadeh

9. Capturing Data (cont’)
Touch Sensors
Used mainly when the devices are to be operative in the users hand
Skin conductance directly
Light or temperature sensors indirectly
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Babak Youssefzadeh

10. Capturing Data (cont’)
Biosensors
Measure skin resistance, blood pressure etc.
Mainly used for Sporting and Medical applications
emotional state of the user may also be obtained
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Babak Youssefzadeh

11. Capturing Data (cont’)
No Power sensors
Designed for extremely low power consumption
Controlling Micro controllers
Examples
Metal ball switches
Mercury Switches
Solar panels
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Babak Youssefzadeh

12. Constraints on Data Capturing
Portability, usability and design
Power consumption
Calibration
Setup Time
Reliability
Price and Cost
Unobtrusiveness
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Babak Youssefzadeh

13. Architecture: from sensor data to Applications
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Babak Youssefzadeh

14. Cues Provide an abstraction from physical and logical sensors
Each cue is dependent on one sensor but a sensor can provide many cues.
Only cues need to be adapted to include new sensors with different characteristics.
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Babak Youssefzadeh

15. Cues (cont’)
Examples
Average
Standard deviation
Quartile distance
Base frequency
First derivative
Cues are an useful abstraction for communication in distributed sensing devices.
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Babak Youssefzadeh

16. Real Example
A context is a description of the current situation on an abstract level.
Example
If ( light is low and acceleration is nonzero )
Then context = “Moving in the dark”
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Babak Youssefzadeh

17. Distributing Computation Load
Kohonen’s self-organizing maps
Use clustering algorithms
Learn clusters dynamically
Clusters and context can be used to predict later contexts
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Babak Youssefzadeh

18. Steps to build Aware devices
Step 1: Identify the contexts that matter
Step 2: Find the appropriate sensor
Step 3: Build and assess a prototypical sensing device
Step 4: Determine recognition and Abstraction Technologies
Step 5:Integration of cue processing and context abstraction
Step 6: Build applications
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Babak Youssefzadeh

19. Step 1: Identify the contexts that matter
The devise to be made smarter is to be analyzed.
Is the devise used in changing environment?
Do the expectations of the user toward the devise vary with situation?
Is the interaction patter different in various situations?
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Babak Youssefzadeh

20. Step 2: Find the appropriate Sensors
For the variables found in Step 1, find appropriate sensor based on the following cues:
Accuracy of the sensor in relation to the variable
Cost to provide the information
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Babak Youssefzadeh

21. Step 3: Build and assess a prototypical devise
Based on the sensors selected build a prototype
Connect it to a standard data storage devise
Test the data being accumulated
Change sensors or data if needed
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Babak Youssefzadeh

22. Step 4: Determine recognition and abstraction technologies
Identify a set of cues, with minimal data loss
Select an algorithm that recognizes the context with maximal certainty and minimal data loss
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Babak Youssefzadeh

23. Step 5: Integration of Cue processing and the Context Abstraction
Integrate the sensing technology and processing methods in a prototype
May need to change algorithms, cues or Sensor based on the performance of the prototype
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Babak Youssefzadeh

24. Step 6: Build the Application
Build applications that use context knowledge
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Babak Youssefzadeh

25. Cost Function Power consumption Size and weight Price of components
Robustness and Reliability
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Babak Youssefzadeh

26. Smart applications
Applications behaving in accordance with their surroundings
Examples
Mobile user applications
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Babak Youssefzadeh

27. Example: Mobile Phone
Mobile phones can switch from one configuration to another
Example: profile-to-profile
Hand : vibrating mode
Table : gentle sound
Pocket : Silent
Outside : Loud ringing
General : if no other context can be detected
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Babak Youssefzadeh

28. Conclusion Smart Device is one that is not ignorant of its environment
Information given by the environment can be used to build smart devices
The context awareness can be used in the appliances like mobile phones.
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Babak Youssefzadeh

29. Finally
ANY QUESTIONS ?
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Babak Youssefzadeh