Internal use only

e-Campus – an overview

rodger lea

Internal use only

What is it

– … a unique testbed for large scale ubiquitous computing systems deployment and experimentation. The overall aim of e-campus is to create a large-scale facility that provides ubiquitous computing applications for all staff, students and visitors to the university campus.

Internal use only

why

Impact of pervasive computing technology on university population• Eg, does knowing what is happening where lead to better space usage

Interface metaphors for public displays• Eg, how can one user access a public display without reducing the utility for others

Context and information provision• what context aware services are of value to a large campus population

Privacy in sensor rich environments• Eg, can we tailor information and still protect privacy

Support for rapid content creation• Eg, how can users quickly create and deploy content centric apps/services

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Approach and Timeline

E-Campus is an ambitious project

– Complex infrastructure and deployment issues– Wide range of research questions and research disciplines

Start – March 2004, 2 year program

– ‘Vision’ calls for 4 year development Initial 2 phase approach

– Phase 1: 5 small scale prototypes – understand key issues• May 04 through to Jan 05

– Phase 2: initial deployment of campus wide infrastructure • Jan 05 through to March 06

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Initial prototypes - Underpass Interactive media wall in

underpass

Aims:

– Understand deployment issues for projectors

– Understand Content creation for e-Campus

Initial prototype

– Interactive art piece – sensor based

– Deployed Oct 2005

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Initial prototypes - spine Interactive panels on public

walkway

Aims:

– Develop canonical ubicomp appl

– Explore interaction models– Develop core software infra

Initial prototype

– Planned to follow underpass• Possible reuse of core

software

– Creation of affiliated project – steerable projectors

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Initial prototypes InfoLab21 Navigation

– Navigation system using displays and doorplates– Aims:

• Explore message based communication in semi wild environments

• Use of displays to foster community• Technology and ethnography tracks

– Investigations in office as well as domestic environments

• Folded into Hermes project and evolving into CASIDE

– CASIDE – situated displays

– Original timeline: May 04 – Dec 04– Status (Oct05): Small scale Hermes deployment

in InfoLab• (Hermes has carried out a set of external

deployments/test)

Internal use only

Initial prototypes Fairy Lights

– SMS driven display prototype using low cost lights

– Aims• Viability of low cost display

technology• Network issues in

deploying low cost ‘addressable’ lights

– Original timeline: May 04 – Dec 04

– Status (Oct05): In progress, prototype under construction, Demo target Dec 05. Patent application underway

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Initial prototypes Library info system

– Display campus wide computing lab status in library – Aims:

• Provide real-world (and useful) data to campus population• Explore bluetooth for local interaction

– Original timeline: May 04 – Dec 04– Status (Oct05):

• Basic system deployed in library since Oct • advanced system in final prototyping at Bark farm.

– Exploration of blue-zone concept

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Status Oct 2005

4 of 5 prototypes deployed

3 in use on daily basis

Underpass generated significant publicity

– Involved interesting art collaboration Fairy-lights potentially a spin-off/start-up

Two e-Campus inspired research grants

– Caside – communications and co-ordination using public displays

– Visiting research fellow – Content management in ubicomp environments

General feeling that interesting lessons have been learned

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Interim research results

Experience

– Significant deployment and prototype experience• Underpass/spine related efforts have led to a new emphasis on

content management• Better understanding of content needs and tool requirements

Publications?

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Infrastructure evolution

Infrastructure has iterated based on a series of prototypes culminating in the underpass demo

– Other projects have fed in requirements

•Scheduler• manage requests for resource• provide fair and deterministic scheduling

•Event heap• tuple space model• main synchronisation point for applications

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Infrastructure evolution

Modified platform deployed in March 2005 (?)

• Event heap proved difficult to use• ordering, sematics and performance• Stateless• replaced by Elvin

•Smiley• ad-hoc solution to state management

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Infrastructure evolution Underpass deployment

– Significant hardware and software extensions to brewery

Video switch

Audio switch

2 livecameras

PC3 XGA

4 Macs

3 projectorsSingle or multiscreen

3 soundchannels

MovementSensors (IR)

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Current Infrastructure features High level System model

– General purpose event model for basic communications between system entities (Elvin)

– ‘media centric’ content programming model• Media presentations, referred to as ‘applications’

– Media streams and time line plus event generation• Media presentation devices – ‘displays’

– Display + computation element + screen management• System state change managers – ‘handlers’

– Policy modules that sit between applications and displays

– Basic model is that applications use events (within transactions) to secure resources, schedule media and perform interaction.

– Applications currently hand crafted – plan to provide tool or extensions to existing tools

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Infrastructure – future plans

Initial trials led to a number of observations

– Content management a key system issues• Provisioning, versioning, meta-data management, workflow etc

Event model needs more flexibility

– Better support for state and state persistence– Flexible ordering schemes, ie lightweight

Proposed approach

– Use content management system as core of infrastructure– Augment with event management component

• Currently under development

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Other infrastructure

ISS experimenting with Domino and Sharepoint

– Simple content management/portal infrastructure Hermes/CASIDE using in-house infra

Testbed group keen for reuse

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Observations

‘stolen time’ is ok for initial investigation but not acceptable for full scale deployment

– Project severely hampered by lack of resources stay focused on research – it can get lost within

development and deployment

– Research goals need to be clearly articulated and pursued document and discuss – sharing knowledge key to

looser collaboration

– Process seems weak within e-campus Testbed versus infrastructure – did you get this right?

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Next Steps

Significant amount of ‘internal’ learning

– This needs to be shared and analysed What are long term goals for e-Campus

– Is the e-Campus ‘vision’ still valid – and feasible?– Is e-Campus still planning a shared infrastructure?– Or is e-Campus simply an umbrella for a set of loosely

related projects? Infrastructure evolution needs to be revisited

– What are requirements• From existing and future work, eg CASIDE

– What are research issues and what can be used ‘off the shelve’

Internal use only

Infrastructure - observation

No strong appetite for common infrastructure

– Complex user base• Simple web and RSS feed for day to day university needs• Bluetooth interactive• CASIDE has separate needs• Interactive art/technology/media requirements

Perhaps better to deploy a basic simple infrastructure (commercial?) designed to meet common needs, eg campus info, socs, faculty stuff etc

Parallel research infrastructure used just for e-Campus research experiments