Wearable context aware terminal for maintenance personnel

Abstract

A wearable context aware terminal with net connection and spoken command input is presented. The context aware terminal can be used, for example, by janitors or other maintenance personnel for retrieving and logging information related to a location, such as a room. The main context cues used are user's identity and location. The user is identified by biometrics which is also used for preventing unauthorized usage of the terminal and information accessible through the terminal. Location information is acquired by using signal strength information of existing Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) infrastructure. Since the wearable terminal is envisaged to be used by maintenance personnel it was seen important to offer possibility to hands-free operation by using spoken commands. Tentative experiments show that this approach might be useful for maintenance personnel. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003.