Hardware for Ubiquitous Computing

1
Hardware for Ubiquitous Computing

• Overview of the current state of hardware for
  ubiquitous computing that has evolved over the
  last 15 to 20 years

2
Preview

• The starting point
• Commercial products
• Compaqs Itsy pocket computer
• IBMs Linux watch
• Wearable and Context-aware computers
• Evolution of Army Wearable Computers
• The Present State and the Future
• Conclusion

3
Summary of Papers

• 1 The InfoPad Multimedia Terminal A Portable
  Device for Wireless Information Access
• Thomas E. Truman, Trevor Pering, Roger
  Doering, Member, IEEE, and Robert W. Brodersen,
  Fellow, IEEE
• IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMPUTERS, VOL. 47, NO. 10,
  OCTOBER 1998
• 2 Itsy Stretching the Bounds of Mobile
  Computing
• William R.Hamburgen, Deborah A. Wallach, Marc A.
  Viredaz, Lawrence S.Brakmo, Carl A. Waldspurger,
  Joel F. Bartlett, Timothy Mann, Keith I. Farkas,
  Compaq Computer Corporation, Corporate Research
• IEEE Computer 2001
• 3 IBMs Linux Watch The Challenge of
  Miniaturization
• Chandra et. al., IBM Research,
• Sreekrishnan et. Al. IBM Software Laboratory,
  India
• Kazuhiko Yamazaki, IBM Japan
• IEEE Computer January 2002

4
Summary of Papers

• 4 Application Design for Wearable and Context-
  Aware Computers
• Asim Smailagic and Daniel Siewiorek,
• Institute for Complex Engineered Systems and
  Human Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie
  Mellon University
• IEEE PERVASIVE Computing 2002
• 5 The Evolution of Army Wearable Computers
• Matthew J. Zieniewicz, Douglas C. Johnson,
  Douglas C. Wong, and John D. Flatt, Research,
  Development, and Engineering Center, US Army
  Communications Electronic Command
• IEEE PERVASIVE Computing
• 6 Disappearing Hardware
• Roy Want and Trevor Pering Intel Research, Santa
  Clara
• Gaetano Borriello University of Washington and
  Intel Research, Seattle
• Keith I. Farkas Compaq Western Research
  Laboratory
• IEEE PERVASIVE Computing 2002

5
InfoPad Multimedia Terminal 1

• An experiment
• Remote I/O interface with no computation and
  application execution
• Consists of
• Radio modem
• Display
• Pen-pointing device
• Audio/Video input output
• Microprocessor Subsystem
• ARM60 processor at 10MHz
• 512KB RAM and 128KB ROM
• Power saving through software
• Peripheral Processing Unit
• Only the interfacing and communication
  capabilities are strong

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InfoPad Multimedia Terminal 1

• Assumptions
• Backbone network resources are virtually
  unlimited
• Quality of 1-2Mbits/sec indoor link can be
  provided and sustained indefinitely
• Real time information access
• Outcome
• Identified weak areas to be improved in later
  designs
• Effectiveness of peripheral processing is
  explored and conclusions derived
• Many ideas and implementation standards were
  tested for effectiveness

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InfoPad Multimedia Terminal
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InfoPad Multimedia Terminal
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InfoPad Internal View
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InfoPad Wireless Interface System
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Itsy Prototype Pocket Computer

• Compaqs mobile computer
• Processing power and memory capacity that can
  run cycle hungry applications
• Continuous speech recognition and real-time
  MPEG-1 movie decoding
• Expandable with daughter cards
• Goal was to pack maximum performance into a unit
  that people can comfortably carry all day in a
  pocket or purse
• Enable easy customization and extension of
  the system hardware and software
• Battery and display are the lower bounds on its
  size
• Processor
• StrongARM SA-1100
• Low power 32-bit processor
• Sleep and idle modes

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Itsy V2 Architecture
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Itsy v2 specifications
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Front and back view of Itsy motherboard
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A Session Manager Running on Itsy2
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Itsy Prototype Pocket Computer

• Software
• Linux operating system supported
• Use of sessions support sharing
• File system uses Linux Ramdisk driver to provide
  dynamic partitioning between process address
  space and memory resident file-systems
• User interface
• Speech and gesture are used as input to avoid
  large conventional interfaces
• Speech
• Two speech recognition systems
• Talksoft/DECtalk and DragonSystems

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Itsy Prototype Pocket Computer

• Gesture user interface
• Use motion of the system itself as input
• Small sensors are embedded to implement
  tilt-to-scroll or rock-n-scroll user interface
• Outcome
• A useful tool to explore the bounds of mobile
  computing
• Innovative user interface used for the first time
  and found to be successful
• Use of Linux as the operating system proved to be
  a successful exercise
• Power management feature is explored
• To be more effective, system should be able to
  assess its own power consumption

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Linux Watch by IBM 3

• Wristwatch Computer
• Runs Linux
• Features X11 Graphics
• Offers Bluetooth wireless connectivity
• Two versions (on the basis of display)
• OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode)
• LCD (Liquid Crystal Display)
• User interface
• Touch screen with symbols in the four corners
  that specify different actions roller wheel
  used as input
• A number of personal information management
  systems have been run on it
• Connectivity performance have been measured

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Linux Watch by IBM OLED LCD
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Linux Watch by IBM
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Linux Watch by IBM

• Outcome
• It is possible to build highly functional
  computer in a wristwatch
• Make a wearable computer
• Current focus
• Additional software components
• Power management issues
• Other ways of using the watch by users
• Display personal data
• Bring the watch to a wider audience
• A large amount of information can be squeezed
  into a smaller device

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Context-aware and Wearable Computers 4

• People on the move need computing facility with a
  wide ranging capabilities
• Wearable computers provide this as a facility
  that is always available everywhere
• Capabilities range from
• Simple stored-information retrieval to
• Synchronous or asynchronous collaboration to
  context-aware platforms with proactive assistants
• Context-awareness adds to their capabilities

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Context-aware and Wearable Computers

• Application domains
• Inspection and Maintenance
• Manufacturing
• Navigation to on-the-move collaboration
• Position sensing
• Real-time speech recognition and language
  translation
• Techniques used
• User-centered design
• Rapid prototyping
• In-field evaluation
• Principles
• Merge wearable computers with the users
  workspace
• Blend seamlessly with the users existing
  environment
• Provide as little distraction as possible

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Family tree of CMU Wearable Computers
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Ten years of Wearable Computing at CMU
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Context-aware and Wearable Computers

• Design principles of mobile systems
• Must balance resource availability with
  portability and usability
• User interface model
• What metaphors can be used for mobile
  information access
• Input/output modalities
• Matching capabilities with application
  requirements
• Quick interface evaluation
• New evaluation techniques are needed that
  provide faster evaluation

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Context-aware and Wearable Computers

• Several functionalities prove useful for these
  systems
• Procedures text and graphics
• Master-apprentice help-desk
• Team maintenance and collaboration
• Context-aware collaboration with a proactive
  assistant
• Example systems show these principles

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Wearable Computer Platform Examples
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Input/output modalities and information sources
for interface models
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The Evolution of Army Wearable Computers5

• Wearable computer to assist soldiers in
  battlefield tasks
• Two major programs
• Soldier Integrated Protective Ensemble (SIPE)
• Land Warrior System
• The first prototype
• The Soldiers Computer 1990
• Assists a soldier in battleground
• Next generation shifted from proprietary to open
  system bus design the SIPE project
• The system evolved into a complete integrated
  system

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Army Wearable Computers
Helmet mounted VGA display Weight 10
Pounds Agilis brick type 386-based computer with
integrated packet radio system Trackball is used
as the input device Software for creating
reports Serial interface to an external GPS
receiver
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The Soldiers Computer

• The new system aimed to digitize basic
  battlefield operations to help soldiers to
• Read maps, navigate, and maintain situation
  awareness
• Receive, prepare, and send written field reports
• Capture and transmit color still images for
  reconnaissance purpose
• Access battlefield operations reference material

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The Soldiers Computer

• Main hardware components
• A compute processor with memory, a GPS receiver,
  a data radio
• A video capture system, a digital compass, a
  miniature color camera
• A video controller subsystem, an HMD, a power
  supply subsystem
• Wiring harnesses, and packaging

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The Soldiers Computer
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The Soldiers Computer

• The device was well received by the users
• Large Software functionality was appreciated
• Problems
• Device needs to be more compact and having longer
  power life
• Weight needed to be reduced
• Image transmission and reception was slow

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Army Wearable Computers

• The Land Warrior Program
• Additional features
• Could identify a soldiers location
• His or her fellow troops
• The enemy
• It relied on C4ISR technologies
• Communications
• Command and control
• Computing
• Intelligence
• Sensor
• Reconnaissance
• The team tried to achieve a lighter, smaller,
  lower powered, and more rugged system

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The Land Warrior Version 0.6
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The Land Warrior Capability - Front
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The Land Warrior Capability - Back
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Timeline of Army Wearable Computers vs Industry
and Academic Developments
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Army Wearable Computers

• Land Warrior System continues to evolve from
• Systems built around a soldiers equipment to
• A system integrated with the soldiers equipment
  towards
• A system built within the soldiers equipment
• Next
• Objective Force Warrior System
• Focuses on electronics embedded in an
  integrated combat uniform
• Technologies that show promise
• Intelligent agents on wireless wearable
  computers
• Java based collaborative tools
• Speech recognition in high noise environment
• Mobile wireless database retrieval

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Disappearing Hardware 6

• How far we have succeeded and
• How far we have to go
• Four most notable developments directly affecting
  ubiquitous computing
• Wireless networking
• Bluetooth and IrDA standards
• Lags behind in bandwidth capabilities
• Processing capability
• Low power consumption and high performance
• Integrated DRAM, LCD controller and other
  I/O capabilities

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Disappearing Hardware

• Storage capacity
• High storage capacity is no longer a problem
• Use of techniques like pre-fetching, caching
  and archiving of data is possible at a larger
  scale
• High quality displays
• A large improvement has taken place
• Size of displays is still a problem
• Scope for improvement exists
• Trends
• Only 2 PCs were sold in the year 2000 as
  compared to the sale of 98 embedded processors
• Processors are beginning to be used ubiquitously

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Evolution of displays1992 2002
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Disappearing Hardware

• Current ubiquitous computing research
• Personal systems
• Mobile and wearable systems
• Infrastructure systems
• Associated with a particular physical locale
• Proactive interaction methods include speech,
  pen, vision and touch processing
• New display technologies would replace the bulky
  flat screen display
• Create flexible display surfaces
• Projection from a small source

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Disappearing Hardware

• Proactivity demands integration of sensors and
  actuators with the physical world
• Three hard problems faced with hardware
• Size
• Weight
• Energy
• Future
• Computer hardware in virtually every device
• Wireless infrastructure and protocols
• Applications and device mappings
• Software also needs to be seamless to support
  disappearing hardware

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Conclusion