Sangchul Ahn, Donghoon Kang, Hyoung-gon Kim and Heedong Ko 122 Ubiquitous Smart Interaction Space Sangchul Ahn, Donghoon Kang, Hyoung-gon Kim and Heedong Ko architecture manner, each service provider has the description Abstract—The context aware systems are often designed and which represents its own capability. It is a strong point for implemented based on a specific scenario with predefined supporting the dynamic discovery of resources and the recon- resources. In this paper, we describe a ubiquitous interactin figuration of the system. Therefore, we have assumed every space that supports rapid context-aware applications reflecting physical object in the environment has the self-description. the smart interaction space with dynamic resources and pro- Actually, we use the Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) [2] as the vides a programmable interface in integrated development device platform. environment (IDE) in .NET framework. The key features of CAIM are the following: • Dynamic resource discovery: CAIM reflects the dynamic Index Terms— Context aware systems, smart spaces, Universal changes of system resources which are comparable with Plug and Play, Web Service Universal Plug and Play devices. It discovers and binds whole upnp devices in domain. If the user wants to add a new system resource, it can be added simply as a upnp device. I. INTRODUCTION • Maintaining the system context: When a new resource involves, CAIM monitors and caches each states of resource O ne of the most distinguishing characteristics of a con- text-aware application is that the application is aware of its dynamic operating environment in physical space as well continuously. The contents of system context that CAIM has are which resources are available, what services that the re- as the user. The physical space consists of many physical source has are, how the services can be invoked are, and what devices embedded with computing and internetworking capa- the states of the devices are. bilities that may be involved or released dynamically for • Application programming interface: CAIM uses the Web contnext-aware applications. Here, we distinguish system Service to provide the unified application programming in- context from user context as all those device states available for terface. To support Web Services, it describes the WSDL a context-aware application. (Web Service Description Language) [] definition according In order to develop context-aware application efficiently, we to the type of resource. When a new resource is discovered or need a middleware support that collects and controls the system removed, it updates the definitions dynamically. If, the user context efficiently. That is, the system provides the direct pro- connects to CAIM through the general IDE which supports gramming interface of its own pervasive system resources that Web Service such as Microsoft Visual Studio .NET, it pub- are changing dynamically with user’s interacting environment. lishes the current available resource definitions. Then, the Context-aware interaction manager (CAIM) [1] is being de- user can build context-aware applications alike the general veloped as a middleware to support for application program- software programming. ming of smart devices and sensors in smart interaction space.. • Integrated Web Server and UDDI registry: CAIM com- II. CONTEXT-AWARE INTERACTION MANAGER municates with other components (UPnP for resources and Web Service for applications) over http. It contains the simple In this paper, we describe CAIM - a service oriented architec- web server. It is not required other web server or UDDI for ture based middleware to manage the system context and to using Web Service. The user can bind the resources by provide the unified programming interface. In service oriented searching the UUID (Universal Unique IDentifier) or device type. This research is supported by the ubiquitous Autonomic Computing and Network Project, the Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) 21st Century Frontier R&D Program in Korea. III. IMPLEMENTATION Sangchul Ahn is with the Imaging Media Research Center, Korea Institute We have developed CAIM based on Java. It is composed of of Science and Technology, Seoul, 136-751 KOREA. He is also with the three major components; Device Adapter, Interaction Manager Yonsei University, Seoul, 120-749 KOREA. (corresponding author to provide phone: +82-2-958-5637; fax: +82-2-958-5769; e-mail: prime@kist.re.kr). and Web Service Interface. Device adapter detects and binds Donghoon Kang is with the Imaging Media Research Center, Korea Institute the UPnP compatible devices. When the devices are bound, it of Science and Technology, Seoul, 136-751 KOREA (e-mail: cho- subscribes the events of devices. Finally, it also executes the hgk@kist.re.kr). actions from the applications. Interaction Manager stores the Hyoung-gon Kim is with the Imaging Media Research Center, Korea In- stitute of Science and Technology, Seoul, 136-751 KOREA (e-mail: cho- system context to repository, transfers the messages between hgk@kist.re.kr). Device Adapter and Web Service Interface, and schedules the Heedong Ko is with the Imaging Media Research Center, Korea Institute of tasks. Web Service Interface is a communication interface for Science and Technology, Seoul, 136-751 KOREA. (e-mail: ko@kist.re.kr). ubiPCMM 2005 123 applications. It generates the WSDL definitions for the regis- The FSR (Force Sensing Resistor) is made of PTF (Poly- tered devices. And it processes the input/output messages to mer Thick Film) device, and exhibits decreasing resistance interact with applications. UDDI Registry provides the search value while increasing the applied force to the active surface. and binding mechanisms for the WSDL definitions. Smart floor systems have been implemented in numerous re- search efforts [5][6][7][8] B. Media wall Fig. 2 shows the conceptual view of the media wall. The media wall displays the media space that can be controlled by smart interaction devices in the room.. IV. SMART INTERACTION SPACE The smart interaction space consists of UPnP-based smart floor, media wall, and smart ceiling. UPnP smart floor is imple- Fig. 2. Conceptual view of the ubiquitous media wall mented using FSR (Force Sensing Resistor) array and can provide context of user activity as well as tracking of users Display Wall Projection. The 4 side of the room are display without attaching sensor to the body. Ubiquitous media wall is wall. Since the aspect ratio of the wall is different from the a modified implementation of CAVE-like environment [4] with video of the projector, 2 projectors are used for each wall side. front projection system. Microphone array and speaker array is Software edge-blending and image warping technology are also included for sound-based interaction service purposes. used for this purpose. Smart ceiling consists of UPnP LED lighting system for re- sponsive illuminations, active video camera array with pan-tilt-zoom capabilities. Floor Projection: The surface of the smart floor can be used as screen and may mark the floor with interaction cues in Fig 3. A. Smart Floor The center of the ceiling is equipped with active Pan-tilt-zoom Fig.1 shows an overview of our smart location tracking projector with UPnP video render capability. This can be used system. Using a GPIO(General Purpose Input Output) function for various user interaction markings. of the Single Board Computer with Intel PXA 255 CPU, the FSR sensor array is scanned to get processed pressure data of a C. Smart Ceiling sensor in real-time. The size of an experimental room space is about 7.2m x 6.6m with each block size is 0.60m x 0.6m. This Fig. 3 shows the smart ceiling comprising UPnP LED lighting embedded board is working as a UPnP device, and can be modules, projector for the floor video, and active camera array. controlled through UPnP Control Point. 10 modules of high power (1W x 10) LEDs from Luxon are used as illumination of the smart space using UPnP device. It can be remote controlled trough UPnP control device. Fig. 3. Actual figure of smart ceiling and projected image for interaction Active video camera array Fig. 1. UPnP Smart Floor 8 active cameras array with pan-tilt-zoom capability video cameras are connected through USB2.0. It can be used for the Sangchul Ahn, Donghoon Kang, Hyoung-gon Kim and Heedong Ko 124 various multi-view vision systems, and currently used mainly [5] Paradiso, Joseph, Craig Abler, Kai-yuh Hsiao, and Matthew Reynolds, “The Magic Carpet: Physical Sensing for Immersive Environments.” In for the real-time visual hull with dynamic view frustum. Late-Breaking / Shot Demonstrations of CHI’97, pp. 277-278, 1997. D. UPnP Device Interface Design [6] Pinkston, Kerkhoff, and McQuilken, “The U.T. Touch-Sensitive Dance Floor and MIDI Controller,” Single board computers with PXA255 CPU are used for the [7] M. Addlesee, A. Jones, F. Livesey, and F. Samaria, “The ORL Active UPnP device implementation. The CPU is based on the Intel Floor.” IEEE Personal Communications, pp. 35-41, Oct. 1997. XScale micro-architecture, and provides 85 GPIO pins for [8] J. Robert and Gregory D. Abowd, “The Smart Floor: A Mecha- generating and capturing of application-specific input and nism for Natural User Identification and Tracking,” CHI 2000, 2000 output signals. Each pin can be programmed as either an input or output using the GPIO Pin Direction Register (GPDR). When programmed as an output, the pin can be set high by writing to the GPIO Pin Output Set Register (GPSR) and cleared low by writing to the GPIO Pin Output Clear Register (GPCR). The set and clear registers can be written to regardless of whether the pin is configured as an input or an output. Fig. 4 shows the implementation of the smart floor using this board. Fig. 4. UPnP device interface for the smart floor. V. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK We believe an infrastructure support by CAIM provides ade- quate support for resource awareness and unified application programming interface to facilitate rapid context-aware appli- cation development. Currently, .NET framework is supported as an integrated development environment for CAIM. We have made the CAIM kernel available for download at http://caim.kist.re.kr for those interested in context-aware ap- plication prototyping in UPnP device environment.. The room size smart interaction space is being extended to a connected corridor and a number of office and meeting rooms with UPnP cameras, displays and crickets. With the extended interaction space with location tracking and media display and input devices, the user may develop novel applications that are unique to ubiquitous interaction space that bridges the gap between virtual and physical space.. REFERENCES [1] Donghoon Kang, Sangchul Ahn, Heedong Ko, Weduke Cho, and Youngtack Park, “Context Awareness for ubiquitous Computing System”, Journal of Korea Intelligent Information Systems Society 2004-Vol.1, 2004. [2] Universal Plug and Play Device Architecture Version 1.0 Available: http://www.upnp.org/download/UPnPDA10_20000613.htm [3] Jerry R. Hobbs and Feng Pan, “An ontology of time for the semantic web”, ACM Transactions on Asian Language Information Processing (TALIP) Volume 3, 2004, pp. 66-85. [4] Carolina Cruz-Neira, “Projection-based Virtual Reality : The CAVE and its Applications to Computational Science”, PhD Thesis, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1995.