Robotic computer as a mediator in smart environments

Abstract

With the advance of IT technologies, a new type of computing device will be introduced for smart environments in the near future. In this paper, we outline our on-going development of the robotic computer that naturally interacts with users, understands the current situation of users and environments, and proactively provides users with services. The proposed robotic computer consists of a control unit and an agent unit. The control unit, which is a remote processing server connected to the host server of the smart environment, provides memory (high-level information) and processing (computing resources) capabilities to the agent unit. The agent unit is a portable device which is wirelessly connected to the control unit, and interacts with users and physical objects. We describe the system architecture and the implementation of a proof-of-concept prototype of the proposed robotic computer. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.