InteractiveSalon Proposal
From MobiComp
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DRAFT Proposal: WP3.3 Mobile group participation in the Stockholm Interactive Salon
The following is a draft for discussion amongst interested parties for a WP3.3 Mobile/Wearable/Ambient presence at the Interactive Salon in Stockholm.
Participant EPOCH partners:
UNIKENT, ARCES, (ETH? PIN? …)
Purpose:
We will create a smart or ambient environment within and around the exhibition area. Within this we will present, and make available for testing and evaluation in a museum setting, a range of:
- location-based information capture and delivery technologies
- visitor and environmental monitoring technologies.
These will be representative of applications of:
- the MobiComp 2 Context-aware infrastructure (WP3.3 CI)
- the Newton project CIMAD (WP3.2)
Other related contributions might include:
- ETH vision-based museum guide
- PIN Semacodes for coins application
A secondary aim is to provide a working visitor guide with access to documentation on some or all of the EPOCH exhibits on show in the Interactive Salon. The guide will also enable visitors to register for access to a web service providing a persistent record of their personal tour and related information after their visit.
How/what
Visitors/evaluators will be provided with a mobile device (PDA or TabletPC) equipped with one or more location sensing technologies (based on InfraRed, Bluetooth, WiFi, RFID, optical tag reader, etc). The exhibition space and a number of individual exhibit areas occupied by other partners will be equipped with sensor and/or beacon devices that enable the mobile devices to be located within the space. When the visitor enters the exhibition space, general information about the exhibits will be presented. As they move around the space, more detailed information about each exhibit will be presented according to their current location.
Device location will be determined either by sensors carried on the mobile device, or by the infrastructure. In the latter case, additional sensors located at selected exhibits will continuously monitor environmental conditions including temperature, humidity, light level and vibration.
In addition to providing visitors with information about the exhibits, the system will track visitor movement within the exhibition space and provide the organisers with anonymised records of visitor activity. Visitors who choose to register with the system will also be given access to a persistent record of their visit with links to further information on the EPOCH exhibits.
Additional possibilities
If posters are to be printed and distributed around the city, we would like to have the possibility of printing an optical tag as part of the poster design. The tag would be a Semacode (see semacode.org) readable by any suitable equipped mobile phone and providing access to the exhibition web site.
Once the locations of posters are known, the tags on some posters could be replaced by labels with unique tags that are mapped to the poster location. Using tag recognition software and GPS-enabled phones or PDAs, we would have the possibility to extend the exhibit by providing other applications such as a simple visitor guide to parts of Stockholm or an interactive, location-based game.
Implementation
The implementation will require three main components: a server, sensor and beacon devices at specific locations in the exhibition area and several mobile clients.
Server
For the MobiComp components, we will need a central server machine running the following open source and EPOCH CI software:
- Apache web server with Tomcat servlet container and PHP.
- eXist XML database (installed as a Tomcat webapp)
- PostgreSQL or comparable DBMS
- MobiComp web services
This machine should have the following networking/comms facilities:
- Wired Ethernet: providing connection to existing network and Internet (where available at the venue),
- WiFi: the machine will act as the main rendezvous point for an ad hoc WiFi network providing core MobiComp services for mobile clients.
- Bluetooth: the machine will act as a coarse granularity Bluetooth beacon covering the entire exhibition space.
The above requirements could be met using a recent PC laptop running WindowsXP or, preferably, Linux. However, its compact size and Unix based operating system make the Mac Mini worth considering as an alternative. It would be easy to transport and can, if necessary, be run in a “headless” mode, using any available laptop with a VNC client for maintenance.
Beacons and sensors
Beacon devices enable the mobile clients to identify locations. Typically they are discovered by a software/hardware scanning component (a MobiComp Tracker) on the mobile device. The beacon transmits either an identifier or other information such as the URL of a webpage giving information about the exhibit. Identifiers are resolved to URLs by Trackers and other MobiComp components. The URL is then used to retrieve appropriate information from the server.
Several different Beacon technologies may be employed, including WiFi, Bluetooth, InfraRed, and optical tags (e.g. Semacodes). In most cases, a single beacon will correspond to a single exhibit, however the signal strengths from WiFi and, perhaps, Bluetooth, beacons may be used to locate a mobile device within the exhibition space. A Tracker will then map the derived location to an appropriate URL.
Optical tags and RFIDs are passive devices that do not require driving by a computer. All others will need some form of computer at the exhibit location, although a single machine might be used to drive beacons at several adjacent exhibits. In some cases, it may be possible to run the necessary beacon driver software as a background process on the PC used to present the individual exhibit. However, as an alternative to bulky and expensive PCs, we propose to host most beacons using small embedded processing nodes constructed from off-the-shelf components.
PCs or embedded processing nodes at each exhibit can also be configured to collect environmental data, such as temperature and humidity, and relay this to the central server.
A further possibility arises when the visitor carries a passive tag and uses it to identify themselves to one or more information kiosks. By identifying the individual, the kiosks can then present information tailored to the visit history. We intend to include a demonstration of this capability using the central server, but feel that the additional bulk and cost of PCs and display screens for each kiosk is outside the scope of this proposal.
Mobile clients
The mobile clients will include a range of devices, typically PDAs and TabletPCs and, possibly, the ARCES/DUCATI WHYRE device. Each will be equipped with MobiComp software components needed to interact with the server and at least one of the available beacon technologies. It may also be possible to offer download of client software for Java-enabled smart phones, so that client software can be installed on the visitor’s own phone.
Additional input required
To realise the system described above, we will need the cooperation of other EPOCH exhibitors in generating suitable web-based content for each of their exhibits. Additional input from partners with experience in web design, especially for small devices, will also be most welcome.
