From Sensors to Semantics: Intelligent Context for Situated Computing

The multiplication of computing devices with which a person in the developed world interacts has grown rapidly. From laptops and mobile phones to automobiles and urban infrastructure, bits are being computed all around us. Each of these platforms brings with it a suite of sensors which are measuring the world of the user. Sometimes the sensors are intentional like GPS and speedometers, but other times they emerge from the repurposing of other hardware, such as Wi-Fi and camera phone location systems.

Each of these sensors, however, looks at the world in a very limited way, for example by generating latitude and longitude pairs or outputting miles per hour. This is not the way that most users reason about or communicate their situation. In order to use the portfolio of sensors around them, computers need to do a better job of rapidly transforming sensor readings into concepts which users can utilize for communication and decision making.

In this talk, I will describe an approach to solving a generalized version of the «Position to Place» problem, which I call the «Sensors to Semantics» problem. Using lightweight artificial intelligence techniques coupled with mobile user interface systems, we collect translations of sensor readings to semantic concepts. By learning across these translations we enable intelligent context-aware support for application developers.

Speaker Bios

Donald J. Patterson is an Assistant Professor in the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of California at Irvine where he also serves as co-director of the Laboratory for Ubiquitous Computing and Interaction. Professor Patterson’s research lies at the interface of ubiquitous computing, artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction. In this space he researches applications, algorithms and systems that utilize intelligent context to support situated computing.He leads several research projects including work on activity and event recognition from Wi-Fi networks, GPS and RFID sensor streams. The latter work resulted in the receipt of the 2005 ISWC Best Paper award. Other research projects include work on Nomatic*IM and Nomatic*Aid, a context aware instant messenger systems, and a context aware photo-capture system respectively. Both of these systems work to bring the user control over the digital presentation of their context while solving a generalized form of the position to place problem. SALi (Sensor Abstraction Layer:Intelligent) is an abstraction layers for rapid and flexible deployment of ubiquitous computing systems that respect user’s desires about how to utilize their sensor suite. Finally, CONRAD (COmmunity Navigation Reception and Display) is a test bed that works to control information display across many small distributed displays.Professor Patterson graduated in 2005 from the University of Washington with a Ph.D. in computer science where he was the recipient of several awards including the University of Washington Educator’s Fellowship, and the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship. Prior to graduate school, Professor Patterson served in the U.S. Navy as a Surface Warfare Officer stationed in Italy and Japan.

Date:
Haut-parleurs:
Donald J. Patterson
Affiliation:
University of California at Irvine