Wearable Computer

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Wearable Computer E-Textiles

• By
• Gee Hang Lui
• Sandeep Vardhan
• Chih-Chieh Han

2
Outline

• Definitions
• Background
• Existing Systems
• MIThril
• Georgia Tech Wearable Motherboard
• CMU

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Definition Steve Mann

• 3 operational modes
• Constancy
• System may sleep, but never dead
• No need to boot the system in order to use it.
• Augmentation
• Mediation

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Augmented Reality (AR)

• Combination the real and the virtual to assist
  the user in his environment
• Examples
• Finger Tracking
• Face Recognition
• Visual Filter
• Navigation
• Repair instruction
• (http//lcs.www.media.mit.edu/projects/wearables/l
  izzy/augmented-reality.html)

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Mediated Reality

• Personal Visual Assistant
• Embodies a spatial visual filter
• Reconfigures the human visual system
• Providing a coordinate transformation
• Visual Memory Prosthetic
• Embodies a temporal visual filter
• Provides computer-induced flashbacks
• (http//n1nlf-1.eecg.toronto.edu/tetherless/tether
  less.html)

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Attributes

• Unmonopolizing
• Attend to other matter while using it
• Enhancement of sensory capabilities
• May mediate the sensory capabilities
• Unrestrictive
• You can do other things while using it
• Example
• You can type while running

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Attributes

• Observable
• Can get your attention continuously if you want
  it to
• The output medium is constantly perceptible by
  the wearer
• Controllable
• Responsive
• Can grab control of it at any time
• Can manually override to break the control loop

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Attributes

• Attentive
• Environmentally aware
• Context sensitive
• Communicative
• Can be used as a communications medium
• Allow the wearer to be expressive through the
  medium

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Existing Systems

• System that composed of gadgets
• MIThril
• CMU VuMan
• Others http//www.praecogito.com/brudy/wearable.h
  tml)
• System woven into shirt fabric
• GTWM/Sensatex

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MIT Media Lab MIThril
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System Specs

• 3 cores
• MPC823 Altera FPGA single-board computer from
  Brightstar Engineering
• Intel SA 1110 Strong-Arm based Intrinsyc
  CerfBoard
• 802.11

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More Specs

• 2 Interfaces (USB and I2C) for connecting
  peripherals including
• I2C tag-reader
• I2C 2G 1 accuracy three-axis accelerometer
• USB microphones
• cameras

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Peripherals connected to Core

• Kopin CyberDisplay 320 Color 320 to Brightstar
• Twiddler One chording keyboard to Brightstar
• Debugging console serial ports to Brightstar and
  CerfBoard

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Software

• Modified 2.4 PPC linux kernel
• Debian Arm linux on the CerfBoard
• Memory Glasses (explain next)

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Memory Glass

• Wearable, proactive, and context-aware memory aid
• A reminder system
• delivery of information is situation conditioned
  reminders are associated with context and are
  delivered when and where appropriate

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More on Memory Glass

• Proactive Deliver information when necessary
• Context aware Deliver information according to
  users context

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The Georgia Tech Wearable Motherboard

• What is a Wearable Motherboard?
• An infrastructure integrated with sensors that
  you can wear.
• Why needed?
• A systematic way of monitoring the vital signs of
  humans in an unobtrusive manner.

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Topics of Discussion

• Motivations
• Highlighted technologies
• Applications

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Motivations

• Monitoring humans vital signs
• Heart rate
• EKG (electrocardiograph)
• Body temperature
• Respiration rate, etc.
• Know more about the status of a human body by
  integrating the above biological phenomenon.
• Apply to
• Combat field
• Medical applications
• More applications later

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Highlighted Technologies

• Plastic Optical Fiber (POF)
• spirally integrated into the structure during the
  fabric production process.
• is woven with other specialty fibers throughout
  the actual fabric of the shirt
• To pinpoint the exact location of a bullet
  penetration.

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Highlighted Technologies (contd)

• Interconnection Technology
• Data bus structure
• Transmit information from and to the sensors
  mounted at any location on the body.
• T-connectors
• sensors are plugged into T-connectors
• Allowing sensors to transmit information to
  multi-function processor (pager-size)

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Highlighted Technologies (contd)

• Fully customizable (various sensors)
• Respitrace sensor
• EKG sensor
• Thermistor-type sensor
• Oxygen level sensor (fire fighters)
• Can be laundered

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Highlighted Technologies (contd)

• Distribution of collected data from sensors
• Transceiver sends data to a wireless gateway.
• Data are then sent via internet
• Then various type of client can access the data,
  e.g. medical doctor, medical data server, etc.

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Applications

• Consumer products
• Medical products
• Military and occupational products

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Applications (contd)

• Consumer products
• Amateur / Individual Sports
• Monitor heart rate, respiration rate, body
  temperature, altitude, location, orientation,
  etc.
• Team Athletic training
• By analyzing athletes vital signs, coaches and
  trainers can manage the training more
  efficiently.

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Application (contd)

• Medical Products
• Monitoring of patients in post-operative recovery
• Patients can go back home.
• Information of the patients can be transmitted to
  the data server of the hospital via internet.
• Infant vital signs monitoring
• Continuously monitoring the vital signs of a
  newborn bady.
• Avoid the infection of diseases and virus more
  efficiently.

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Application (contd)

• Military and occupational products
• Battle combat care

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CMU Wearable Computer Project

• Developing a new class of computing systems with
  a small footprint
• Should be carried or worn by a human and be able
  to interact with computer-augmented environments
• Relate to access to information
• 18 generations have been designed and built over
  the last seven and a half years.
• Most have been field-tested

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Several Projects Underway
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VuMan

• User can maneuver and interact with Private Eye
  
• Gives the illusion of viewing a personal computer
  screen from five feet away
• User can use a cursor to select maps, images, or
  text
• New applications can be loaded via different
  EPROM memory card into PCMCIA slot
• Main app Campus tour and Maintenance Assistant
• Contains cache memory, hardware power management,
  PCMCIA slots, optional wireless radio
• Different models can be used based on
  functionality
• VuMan 3 70 of weight is battery, VuMan 2, 50
  is battery, VuMan 1 20 is battery. Battery
  size depends on functionality required

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Navigator 2

• Multimedia wearable computer for Boeing aircraft
  application
• Allows user to record aircrafts cracks and
  corrosion all over an aircraft
• Input device is a joystick with general
  2-dimensional input
• Savings of 20 in inspection time, and also
  reduces data entry time from hours to minutes

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TIA-P

• Ruggedized hand-held pen based system
• Applications
• Speech translation, vehicle maintenance, small
  unit operations
• Full duplex sound chip, 2Mbps radio, 32 MB main
  memory, 1.3 GB IDE drive, 100 Mhz 486 processor

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TIA-O

• Smaller packager version of TIA-O
• Applications speech translation, electronic
  interactive technical manuals for F-16
  maintenance, medical response system

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Metronaut

• Provides ability to sense information
• locate position via bar code reader
• Wide range comm. With two-way pager
• Apps like Navigation, messaging, and scheduling

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ISAAC

• Hands-free control of common office systems from
  anywhere in office building via speech and a
  wearable computer
• Uses
• a wireless microphone for input to a stationary
  computer,
• speech rec. to determine the request
• IR and IR extenders for remote control of devices
• Speech synthesis delivered over IR to a headset
  for output
• Consumes less than one watt of power and weights
  less than a pound

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Daimler-Benz/Adtranz

• Mobile computer with
• Pen-based input
• Spread spectrum radio
• Voice transmission
• Image capture
• VGS head mount support
• 260MB hard disk
• PCMCIA slots
• Applications include fault reporting and
  preventative maintenance

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MoCCA

• Mobile Communication and Computing Architecture
• Designed to support geographically distributed
  field service engineers (FSE)
• Comprised of many components
• Base unit which is a small laptop
• Cell phone
• Satellite unit
• Wireless microphone which is connected to cell
  phone
• UI though a web browser

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MoCCA
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Digital Ink

• Sophisticated pen that recognizes and stores the
  handwriting and drawing of its user
• After writing, user can write SEND and info is
  sent wirelessly (cell phone) to fax machines,
  desktop computers or other digital pens

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Speech Translator/ Smart Module

• Smart modules are dedicated to speech processing
  applications
• Provides service instantaneously and is
  configuration for different apps
• SR module uses Sphinx 2 continuous, speaker
  independent system.
• Code was profiled and tuned
• Profiling was done to find hot spots for hw/sw
  acceleration and reduce computational storage
  resources.
• Input is audio and output is ASCII text

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Speech Translator/Smart Module

• Coupled with LT to form complete stand-alone
  audio-based interactive dialogue system for
  speech translation

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WRL Itsy

• Powerful platform for mobile computing research
• Features
• StrongARM processor (clock-throttleable)
• 8Mbytes flash memory/ 64 MB RAM
• Serial port
• Gray Display and touch screen
• Linux
• Ported Sphinx speech recognition system, PCMCIA
  Card Services, and Lucent WaveLAN driver
• Processor clock can be varied from 30 MHz to 200
  MHz

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Government Programs

• DARPA ETO Humionics
• Integration of users information space and
  workspace
• CMU type applications
• DARPA ITO E-Textiles
• New program to bring textile and electronics
  industries together

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References

• WearCam.org (http//wearcam.org)
• MIThril (http//www.media.mit.edu/wearables)
• GTWM (http//www.gtwm.gatech.edu/)
• CMU VuMan (http//www-2.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/
  project/vuman/www/home.html)
• Steve Mann, Wearable, Tetherless,
  Computer-Mediated Reality (with possible future
  applications to the disabled) Feb. 2, 1996
  (adapted to paper i presented at AAAI, Nov. 1996)

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References

• Steven Mann, Empowerment Fundamental Issues in
  Wearable Computing The First International
  Conference on Wearable Computing, ICWC-98, May
  12-13, FairFax
• http//www.sensatex.com/technology.htm
• Papers from CMU site
• http//www-2.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/project/vum
  an/www/home.html
• http//www.eetimes.com/story/technology/OEG2001110
  1S0054 DARPA Textile Program