• Provide the ability to control audio sources from any room in the house
• Give the user access to all available audio sources within the home (and possibly outside the home, stored in a common audio library)
• Allow the user to set preferences for volume and music selection on a per-room basis, including the option to "follow" to the room or "not follow" to the room
• Store and track personal preference data about music selections to enable queries such as "Play my favorite Beatles song" or "Play me one of my favorite jazz songs"

• Indoor positioning system that can accurately track user movement between rooms in the home
• Volume control that channels output only to certain speakers in the house based on the position of the user without interrupting the audio
• Voice command and Touch Screen bi-modal interface to the system from each room to allow greater flexibility and ease of use
• Database with personal profile for each user in the home to store preference data
• Complex query system to interpret and respond to complicated user requests

Usage scenario

The Basics...

Sam is sitting in his room, trying to relax after a long day at work. He decides he wants to listen to some nice, soothing Enya. Sam reaches over to the panel on the wall, keys in Enya, and touches the "Random selection" button. The computer responds, "Selection chosen. Playing Afer Ventus by Enya." Ahhhh. Finally some time to relax. "SAM!!!! Get in there and cook us some dinner!" Sam's wife, Mary, is even more tired than Sam. After dealing with 30 fifth graders who want to surf the web instead of study long division, she needs a break. Reluctantly, Sam gets up out of his comfortable chair and slowly walks towards the kitchen. The soothing sounds of Enya continue to relax Sam on his journey down the hall and into the kitchen. Steadily, the volume from the speakers in the kitchen rises to Sam's chosen level. There's always more going on out here in the kitchen and dining area, so Sam has the volume set a little higher than in his private study. Without even noticing, Sam begins to enjoy cooking while listening to Enya. As the song ends, Sam decides he likes Enya even more in the kitchen. "Computer: Repeat Shuffle." "Shuffling Enya. Selection chosen. Playing Shepherd Moons."

The Custom Room...

After slaving over dinner for several hours and feeding his family and kids, Sam is ready to relax. He heads back to his study. As he enters the room, his Enya selection begins where it stopped for dinner. With the door closed, the volume of the music slowly rises to Sam's preset volume level. Sam drifts off into a daze, dreaming about some Swedish woman from Mars skiing down a red mountain. After a few minutes, Sam becomes aware of his surroundings again and decides he needs to make a trip to the restroom. The music follows him into the hallway, but stops as he enters the restroom. Sam has decided that he doesn't want his music following him into the bathroom. When Sam returns to the hallway, Enya's Angeles picks up right where it left off when he went into the restroom. On his way back to his study, Sam decides to check in on his baby daughter. As Sam enters her bedroom, the music fades out to a barely audible level. Everyone in the house has preset their volume to be low in the baby's room so the loud music won't disturb little Jamie. "Oooo goochie goo. Cutie wittle huney bunny. You are so sweet!" After checking in and finding his youngest to be well, Sam heads out to his study to finally relax.

The Audio Manager...

Once Sam gets back to his study, the volume level rises back to his preset level for the study. "You know, I'm kinda tired of Enya now," Sam thinks. "Computer: Play my favorite Metallica song." "Selection chosen. Playing One by Metallica." Ah, now that rocks. After banging his head for a little while, Sam decides he should calm down before he has a heart attack. As the song winds down, Sam decides he would like to listen to some lighter rock, but something a tad more lively than Enya. "Computer: Random Selection from my soft rock collection." "Selection chosen. Playing Foolish Games by Jewel." "Ahhh, I haven't heard that one in at least a decade. Good choice," Sam says quietly. Sam has set up several groups which contain songs he likes. The system is able to sort through these groups and decide which songs Sam might want to listen to at any given time based on the frequency that he listens to the song and possibly the time since he last heard the song. As Sam leans back in his chair, he hears a faint voice in response to his comment, "Thank you." Startled, Sam leans forward and stares around the room, "It must have been the wind..."

Evaluation criteria

"Follow Me" will be evaluated in a lab setting, with the assistance of a system expert. The environment will be a simulated multi-room home, with a desktop computer providing a prototypical wall mounted or handheld interface. In addition, a voice interface will be simulated. The system will be evaluated by the development and evaluation teams on the basis of the following criteria:

Robustness

• Given a collection of music (and other audio sources) in some format, what access functionality should be available, and does the system provide it?
• Does the system clearly indicate its state at all times? Can the state be explored?
• Can the system be interrupted and/or corrected?
• Are error conditions understandably presented, and options given for continuation?

  Measures:
  

  • How often was operational assistance required?
  • How often was the system's state indeterminate? Under what conditions?
  • How long (on average) does the user wait for system responses?
  • How long did the user spend correcting input or output errors?
  • What percentage of user queries resulted in correct system responses?

Accessibility

• Are the available operations easily perceived and understood?
• Are the interaction modalities readily accessible?
• Does the system respond in different modes? Consistently?
• Does the system respond in a manner that is familiar when compared to similar systems?

  Measures:
  

  • Of the features available, how many were used?
  • Were system responses expected (correct) or confusing?
  • Does the system conform to current "standard" interaction modes?

Satisfaction

• Does the system allow the owner/operator/user the ability to do everything he/she expects?
• What functionality should/should not be present?
• Did the system ever behave or respond in a confusing manner? Did it ever respond incorrectly?
• How would the user rate the system? How does the interface compare to more traditional access modes?

  Measures

  • User Interviews
  • User questionnaire
  • Observation of user during testing and system operation
  • Interaction efficiency (comparison of expert vs. novice user)

The "old" system

Our team was unable to find a similar project for comparison. However, we were able to find a couple of projects that deal with the two basic components of our system: positioning and distributed audio.

Below we give a summary of these two projects.

Positioning: Active Badge Location System

This technology comes from Olivetti Research Laboratory in Cambridge, England. They have developed a system that allows tracking of people inside buildings if they wear an Active Badge. The badge emits a unique code for approximately a tenth of a second every 15 seconds (a beacon). These periodic signals are picked up by a network of sensors placed around the host building. A master station, also connected to the network, is given the task of polling the sensors for badge 'sightings', processing the data, and then presenting it in a useful visual form. The badge was designed in a package roughly 55 x 55 x 7mm and weights a comfortable 40g. Pulse-width modulation infrared signals are used for signaling between a badge and a sensor.

If a signal from a given badge cannot be obtained then the last position it was detected is reported. Supposedly a person should be wearing the badge as long as he is at work or is using the tracking system. People, however, are free to take off the badge at any moment and leave it on their desks.

The main application that Olivetti had in mind when developing the badge was to track workers and forward phone calls for them to the nearest phone around their current location. In this way people expecting incoming calls would not have to wait in their offices and can freely move around the building. Also, group meetings could be called in a very short notice since the exact location of each group member will be known.

http://www.cam-orl.co.uk/thebadge.html

Distributed Audio/Video Systems

Intelligent Home Technologies, Inc. offers the latest in home technologies to homeowners, architects and builders in the metropolitan Washington, D.C./Baltimore area.

Distribution of audio and video signals throughout the home is accomplished by a combination of low voltage wiring and special distribution equipment consisting of splitter/combiners or modulators. Infrared, radio frequency, RS232, or X-10 remote control may be included to provide total control of audio and video sources.

Audio may be distributed to speakers in individual rooms through distribution amplifiers. Each room may be equipped with an individual volume control or with a keypad. The keypad, RF remote or I/R remote allows the selection of the source (receiver, CD, DVD, etc.), various source functions (pause, forward, backward, next track, etc.), as well as control of volume, bass and treble.

External video signals (cable, DSS, video cameras) are sent to various locations throughout the home (downstream feed). Each location may have a TV for viewing the signals. In addition, each location in the home with a transmitting device (e.g., VCR, laser disc player, etc.) may transmit those signals back to the distribution center for retransmission throughout the home (upstream feed). Each location may also include infrared transmitters/receivers for remote control purposes. The infrared signals may be sent over 3 conductor wires, or may be multiplexed on the coax cable.

http://www.vni.net/homeautomation/av.htm

Summary

Our project will combine aspects of the above two projects. We probably will not be able to compete against each one individually, but since we will provide more functionality as a whole, our system may be more useful.

For the positioning part we will be using cameras that allow us to locate the person and follow them as they move. The active badge provides only approximate location since for 15 seconds there is no information. Rapid transitions from one room to another probably will not be detected until the next signal is emitted from the badge. If we require that the audio signal is fed to the speakers in the other room there can be a significant and annoying delay. Therefore, the badge is not appropriate for this particular application, plus it is too expensive. However, the badge has one key advantage to our system: it can track more than one person in a given room. Our vision system will be primitive and can track at most one person per room.

As for the distributed audio we would never be able to compete with Intelligent Home Technologies in terms of hardware. However, we can use different computers to play the role of speakers in different rooms. Using software we will be able to achieve things that cannot be done easily in hardware. Some examples are: "Given a CD, play only the songs that I like i.e., filter according to my preferences", "Do not play my favorite Rock song if it is 2a.m., give me Mozart instead". Overall the user will have much more flexibility in setting up the system.