Dominic Carr

Sensor Web interaction

Ubiquitous sensing fuses the concepts of intelligent systems with ubiquitous computing in the development of novel Sensor Web applications, whereby the interaction of multiple disparate autonomous artefacts is a key requirement. In this paper, we present SIXTH, which is a middleware infrastructure for Ubiquitous Sensing that facilitates, and supports, the development and deployment of Sensor Web applications. SIXTH has been designed to be extensible, with provisions for user definable data retention policies, custom sensor data representations, and custom sensor node representations, whilst still providing a rich set of default behaviours. Within SIXTH, support is provided for the development and interaction of applications that incorporate both physical and cyber (virtual server side) sensors. With a view to supporting intelligent, in network, interaction policies, whereby sensor nodes must negotiate and coordinate their behaviour, the system has been designed to operate in conjunction with Agent Factory Micro Edition (AFME). AFME is a minimised footprint intelligent agent platform designed for resource constrained devices. It is based on the standard Agent Factory platform, which was developed for desktop machines, and is representative of a class of agent systems, which are referred to as Agent Oriented Programming frameworks. The paper discusses a ubiquitous mapping application that was developed using the middleware.

SIXTH: A Middleware for Supporting Ubiquitous Sensing in Personal Health Monitoring

For an arbitrary event, a lack of the prevailing context compromises understanding. In health monitoring services, this may have serious repercussions. Yet many biomedical devices tend to exhibit a lack of openness and interoperability that reduces their potential as active nodes in broader healthcare information systems. One approach to addressing this deficiency rests in the realization of a middleware solution that is heterogeneous in a multiplicity of dimensions, whilst supporting dynamic reprogramming as the needs of patients change. This paper demonstrates how such functionality may be interwoven into a middleware solution, both from a design and implementation perspective.

From bogtrotting to herding: a UCD perspective

This is the third year in which a team from University College Dublin has participated in the Multi-Agent Programming Contest (http://www.multiagentcontest.org/2010). This paper describes the system that was created to participate in the contest, along with observations of the team’s experiences in the contest. The system itself was built using the AF-TeleoReactive and AF-AgentSpeak agent programming languages running on the Agent Factory platform. A hybrid control architecture inspired by the SoSAA strategy aided in the separation of concerns between low-level behaviours (such as movement and obstacle evasion) and higher-level planning and strategy.

Giving mobile devices a SIXTH sense: Introducing the SIXTH middleware for Augmented Reality applications

With the increasing availability of sensors within smartphones and within the world at large, a question arises about how this sensor data can be leveraged by Augmented Reality (AR) devices. AR devices have traditionally been limited by the capability of a given devices unique set of sensors. Connecting sensors from multiple devices using a Sensor Web could address this problem. Through leveraging this SensorWeb existing AR environments could be improved and new scenarios made possible, with devices that previously could not have being used as part of an AR environment. This paper proposes the use of SIXTH: a middleware designed to generate a Sensor Web, which allows a device to leverage heterogeneous external sensors within its environment to help facilitate the creation of richer AR experiences. This paper will present a worst case scenario, in which the device chosen will be a see-through, Android-based Head Mounted Display that has no access to sensors. This device is transformed into an AR device through the creation of a Sensor Web allowing it to sense its environment facilitated through the use of SIXTH.

Intelligent Decision-Making in the Physical Environment

The issue of situating intelligent agents within an environment, either virtual or physical, is an important research question in the area of Multi Agent Systems. In addition, the deployment of agents within Wireless Sensor Networks has received some focus also. This paper proposes an architecture to augment the reasoning capabilities of agents with an abstraction of a physical sensing environment over which it has control. This architecture combines the SIXTH sensor middleware platform with the ASTRA agent programming language, using CArtAgO as the intermediary abstraction.

Pervasive Sensing: Addressing the Heterogeneity Problem

Pervasive sensing is characterized by heterogeneity across a number of dimensions. This raises significant problems for those designing, implementing and deploying sensor networks, irrespective of application domain. Such problems include for example, issues of data provenance and integrity, security, and privacy amongst others. Thus engineering a network that is fit-for-purpose represents a significant challenge. In this paper, the issue of heterogeneity is explored from the perspective of those who seek to harness a pervasive sensing element in their applications. A initial solution is proposed based on the middleware construct.

Bogtrotters in space

This is the fourth year in which a team from University College Dublin has participated in the Multi-Agent Programming Contest. This paper describes the system that was created to participate in the contest, along with observations of the teams experiences in the contest. The system itself was built using the AF-TeleoReactive and AF-AgentSpeak agent programming languages running on the Agent Factory platform. Unlike in previous years where a hybrid control architecture was used, this year the system was implemented using only agent code and associated actions, sensors, modules and platform services.

Collaborative sensing: Delivering an intelligent and adaptive sensing infrastructure

This paper advocates the need for collaborative sensing which demands that individual sensors collaborate and operate as a collective. To achieve this vision it is necessary for networks to be imbued with distributed intelligence and the capacity to both reason and opportunistically collaborate. The pushing of such computational demands into a computationally challenged network is contrary to considered wisdom. This paper contests that benefits can accrue from such in network collaborative intelligence.

SIXTH middleware for sensor web enabled AR applications

We increasingly live in a world where sensors have become truly ubiquitous in nature. Many of these sensors are an integral part of devices such as smartphones, which contain sufficient sensors to allow for their use as Augmented Reality (AR) devices. This AR experience is limited by the precision and functionality of an individual devices sensors and the its capacity to process the sensor data into a useable form. This paper discuss the current work on a mobile version of the SIXTH middleware which allows for creation of Sensor Web enabled AR applications. This paper discusses current work on mobile SIXTH, which involves the creation of a sensor web between different Android and non-Android devices. This has led to several small demonstrators which are discussed in this work in progress paper. Future work on the project will be outline the aims of the project to allow for the integration of additional devices so as to explore new abilities such as leveraging additional proprieties of those devices.