Context-aware agents to guide visitors in museums

Abstract

This paper presents an agent-based system for building and operating context-aware services in public museums. Using RFID-tags or location-sensors, the system detects the locations of users and deploys user-assistant agents at computers near the their current locations. When users move between exhibits in a museum, this enables agents to follow them to annotate the exhibits in personalized form and navigate them to the next exhibits along their routes. It provides users with intelligent virtual agents in the real-world and enables them to easily interact with their agents though user movement between physical places. To demonstrate the utility and effectiveness of the system, we constructed and operated location/user-aware visitor-guide services in a science museum as a case study in our development of agent-based ambient computing in wide public spaces. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.