The scientific program is organized in five closely cooperating, mutually complementary research areas (RAs):
RA A - Man-Machine Interfaces
RA B - Human-Centric Data Search and Interpretation
RA C - Situation Aware Flexible Communication
RA D - Content and Service Provisioning
RA E - Modeling and Engineering of Computer Supported Communication Spaces (CSCS)
RA A - Man-Machine Interfaces
Man-machine-interfaces (MMIs) play a vital role in modern communication. Lack of usability has developed into one of the most important barriers for the acceptance of applications. Many research efforts are currently devoted towards extending standard user-interfaces with adaptation and learning abilities. Along with this development, novel concepts for designing and evaluating the usability of such interfaces become necessary. Our approach therefore is to explore usability concepts for developing smart systems and devices that interact with the user in a most natural, intuitive way. To this end we will focus our research on the so called 3rd generation of multimodal perceptual interfaces that have "eyes", "ears", and other "senses" (e.g. biometrical sensors) and maintain a certain level of "intelligence" to interact with the user. These devices will be able to recognize and interpret their environments, sense users and their intentions. By means of sophisticated audio-visual and haptic feedback, we will present information content to the user in a better understandable form, and create an application related context for innovative interaction. This work includes novel auto-stereoscopic 3D displays, immersive environments and haptic interfaces, based on exoskeletons.
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RA B - Human-Centric Data Search and Interpretation
In future communication environments, users will have access to a large number of information sources ranging from other users over the Internet, multimedia databases to sensor networks monitoring users and environments. In order to make such environments usable for the general public, intuitive and highly automatic ways must be designed to make relevant information available while hiding the complexity of this task. Here we will develop the algorithms needed for these intelligent communication services. Methods will be based on information content rather than on mere features of cross-media documents and will make use of all digitally available information about users for personalization. We will combine our methodological expertise in AI, machine learning, and theoretical computer science with domain knowledge in the interpretation of cross-media data and search engine technology. We will establish the mathematical foundations for learning and inference in these domains, and we will develop efficient algorithms for content generation, for a content-based retrieval of cross-media data, and for the personalized selection of information for proactive services.
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RA C - Situation Aware Flexible Communication
Human-centric communication systems are ambient-aware, easy to use and affordable. Within this RA, sensors networks will be investigated for the collection and distribution of information about the situation and the user's intentions. These sensors should be light and small to be integrated in daily objects like clothes, glasses, which we carried every day. We will focus on sensor and integration techniques, energy management and storage.
For easy and flexible use, one single mobile device will be the people's personal communication assistant that supports a large range of services and communication standards. Techniques for re-configurable wireless devices are considered that will be controlled by an access management according to quality demand as well as network and hardware constraints.
Flexible, high-capacity wireless networks will comprise a large number of densely distributed base-stations connected by optical transmission links. We will investigate methods to reduce complexity and maintenance of optical transmission systems, e.g. by the use of electrical signal processing within smart transmitters and receivers and nanophotonic sub-modules.
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RA D - Content and Service Provisioning
The objective of this research area is to provide a flexible framework for support of different communication interaction patterns within user communities, in spite of mobility, and dynamically changing membership. For this purpose we will work on innovative Internet working architectures, assuring direct addressing of information and people rather than devices, mobility support and efficient native support for group communication. We will work on network planning aspects harmonized with autonomic self configuration based on distributed control of network topology and resource allocation with limited cooperation. On the other hand specific functional blocks will support dynamic capturing and adjustment of the user personal data/preferences and his context. New generation "middleware" will assure highly dynamic service discovery, service personalization with user/user context data and scalable, efficient execution with respect to quality of service and security constraints. Finally we will work on means for combining services - with all the necessary causal relations - into full applications. Scripting languages, but also methods for detection of possible unexpected interactions will be developed.
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RA E - Modeling and Engineering of Computer Supported Communication Spaces (CSCS)
Computer supported communication spaces (CSCS) should satisfy high standards of reliability, robustness, security and privacy. The underlying systems need to be maintained over decades to provide stable and trustworthy communication environments and reliable access to content. The long-term goal of this RA is to develop a unified methodology using a model-based approach for the whole system lifecycle of CSCS: from specification of functional and non-functional requirements, via specification of components and architectures, stepwise refinement and mapping onto hardware/software execution platforms to testing. In contrast to traditional approaches our approach is to develop a new generation of system engineering techniques that take into account human-centric factors like reliability, security, privacy, and usability issues from the very beginning, leading to trustworthy, secure, stable, and robust communication systems. The key new concept "communication space" will be studied form different points of view in this RA. Modeling, verification&validation as well as (code) generation techniques for CSCS will be developed.
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