Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

This paper discusses the prototypical implementation of an ambient display and the results of an empirical study in a retail store. It presents the context of shopping as an application area for Ambient Intelligence (AmI) technologies. The prototype consists of an ambient store map that enhances the awareness of customer activity. The results of our study indicate potentials and challenges for an improvement of the shopping experience with AmI technologies. Based on our findings we discuss challenges and future developments for applying AmI technologies to shopping environments.

Visions of ambient intelligence and ubiquitous computing involve integrating tiny microelectronic processors and sensors into everyday objects in order to make them “smart.” Smart things can explore their environment, communicate with other smart things, and interact with humans, therefore helping users to cope with their tasks in new, intuitive ways. Although many concepts have already been tested out as prototypes in field trials, the repercussions of such extensive integration of computer technology into our everyday lives are difficult to predict. This contribution is a first attempt to classify the social, economic, and ethical implications of this development.

A set of services and interface primitives to be offered to an application programmer of an ad hoc wireless sensor and actuator network (AWSAN) is described. As the definition of sockets has made the use of communication services in the Internet independent of the underlying protocol stack, communication medium and even operating system, the proposed application interface, called the “sensor network services platform” (SNSP), identifies an abstraction that is offered to any sensor network application and supported by any sensor network platform. The SNSP builds on the query/command paradigm already used in several sensor network implementations and further adds time synchronization, location and naming services that support the communication and coordination among application components.

As technologies in the area of storage, connectivity and displays evolve rapidly and business developments point to the direction of the experience economy, the vision of Ambient Intelligence is positioning human needs central to technology development. This chapter describes concerted research efforts surrounding the HomeLab, a special research instrument that supports scientific investigations of the interaction between humans and technology. Such investigations reach beyond traditional usability and technology acceptance, aiming to characterize the nature of user experiences, measuring them and designing them. Starting from a historical view upon the vision of Ambient Intelligence, this chapter presents the HomeLab, the rationale for its set-up and three related studies that were conducted within it. These studies have focused on technology use at home for leisure purposes; more specifically they have explored the experience of immersion from displays that extend beyond screen boundaries to encompass the lighting in a room, and the experience of social presence and connectedness with remote friends and family as they result from peripheral awareness displays.

Ambient intelligence has the potential to profoundly affect future building operations. Recent breakthroughs in wireless sensor network technology will permit, (1) highly flexible location of sensors and actuators, (2) increased numbers and types of sensors informing more highly distributed control systems, (3) occupants’ involvement in control loops, (4) demand responsive electricity management, (5) integration among now-separate building systems, and (6) the adoption of mixed-mode and other new types of air conditioning systems that require more sensor information to operate efficiently. This chapter describes the issues with current building automation technology, assesses how some applications of wireless sensor technology can increase the quality of control and improve energy efficiency, and suggests opportunities for future development.

As technologies in the area of storage, connectivity and displays evolve rapidly and business developments point to the direction of the experience economy, the vision of Ambient Intelligence is positioning human needs central to technology development. This chapter describes concerted research efforts surrounding the HomeLab, a special research instrument that supports scientific investigations of the interaction between humans and technology. Such investigations reach beyond traditional usability and technology acceptance, aiming to characterize the nature of user experiences, measuring them and designing them. Starting from a historical view upon the vision of Ambient Intelligence, this chapter presents the HomeLab, the rationale for its set-up and three related studies that were conducted within it. These studies have focused on technology use at home for leisure purposes; more specifically they have explored the experience of immersion from displays that extend beyond screen boundaries to encompass the lighting in a room, and the experience of social presence and connectedness with remote friends and family as they result from peripheral awareness displays.

We present TinyOS, a flexible, application-specific operating system for sensor networks, which form a core component of ambient intelligence systems. Sensor networks consist of (potentially) thousands of tiny, low-power nodes, each of which execute concurrent, reactive programs that must operate with severe memory and power constraints. The sensor network challenges of limited resources, event-centric concurrent applications, and low-power operation drive the design of TinyOS. Our solution combines flexible, fine-grain components with an execution model that supports complex yet safe concurrent operations. TinyOS meets these challenges well and has become the platform of choice for sensor network research; it is in use by over a hundred groups worldwide, and supports a broad range of applications and research topics. We provide a qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the system, showing that it supports complex, concurrent programs with very low memory requirements (many applications fit within 16KB of memory, and the core OS is 400 bytes) and efficient, low-power operation.We present our experiences with TinyOS as a platform for sensor network innovation and applications.

A set of services and interface primitives to be offered to an application programmer of an ad hoc wireless sensor and actuator network (AWSAN) is described. As the definition of sockets has made the use of communication services in the Internet independent of the underlying protocol stack, communication medium and even operating system, the proposed application interface, called the “sensor network services platform” (SNSP), identifies an abstraction that is offered to any sensor network application and supported by any sensor network platform. The SNSP builds on the query/command paradigm already used in several sensor network implementations and further adds time synchronization, location and naming services that support the communication and coordination among application components.

Awareness of space and time is an essential component of our daily living experience. Hence, any ambient intelligence environment must have a sense of location and time built into it. This information, however, needs to be provided with a minimum of infrastructural overhead. In addition, there services should come with low energy consumption, robustness to changing environmental conditions, and adapt themselves to dynamically varying networks. This chapter presents a set of algorithms for the localization and synchronization of sensor network services, developed with the above design principles in mind. For the first service, localization, several existing localization methods are evaluated. The trade-off between accuracy and overhead (in terms of density, infrastructure and ranging needs) is discussed. For the second service, synchronization, it is demonstrated that accuracy can be sacrificed for gains in energy efficiency. The algorithm starts by constructing a spanning tree across the network. Once the spanning tree structure is constructed, nodes perform pair-wise synchronization along the edges of this tree. The tree-structure reduces the number of pair-wise synchronizations that need to be performed and is thus energy-efficient. The tree can be constructed in a centralized (reference node initiated) or distributed (sensor node initiated) fashion. Simulation results for the different variants of the synchronization algorithm are presented. The chapter is concluded with a number of reflections and perspectives.

This paper discusses the prototypical implementation of an ambient display and the results of an empirical study in a retail store. It presents the context of shopping as an application area for Ambient Intelligence (AmI) technologies. The prototype consists of an ambient store map that enhances the awareness of customer activity. The results of our study indicate potentials and challenges for an improvement of the shopping experience with AmI technologies. Based on our findings we discuss challenges and future developments for applying AmI technologies to shopping environments.