INTEGRATED ACCESS AND CONTROL IN A TELE-WORKING ENVIRONMENT

Jose Manuel Martins Ferreira (jmf@fe.up.pt)
INESC / University of Porto

Rui Miguel Monteiro de Brito (rbrito@inescn.pt)
INESC / ISPGaya

Miguel Angel Simoes Santiago (mas@inescn.pt)
INESC
Pr. Republica, 93 - 4050 Porto - PORTUGAL
Tel. 351-2-2094295 / Fax: 351-2-2084172

Maria de Lourdes Lourenco
Centro de Reabilitacao de Paralisia Cerebral
Trav. Maceda, 160 - 4300 Porto - PORTUGAL
Tel. 351-2-565756 / Fax: 351-2-580342

Web Posted on: November 22, 1997

ABSTRACT

This paper describes the technical solutions and preliminary results of one international project which addresses the development of a tele-working environment for users with cerebral palsy. The work started in 1996, involves Greek and Portuguese institutions in the areas of rehabilitation and systems engineering, and has the following three main objectives: to set up an "intelligent office", where a home systems infrastructure (also called "intelligent home" or "intelligent buildings" technology) enables the users to remotely control their environment; to provide the facilities required to access local (mainly AAC) and remote communications (mainly by telephone, fax or e-mail); and to provide access to Windows applications commonly used in the office environment. A Windows 95 application was developed to provide an integrated interface able to meet these three requirements and a first prototype of the basic system is currently being evaluated at the Cerebral Palsy Rehabilitation Centre in Porto. An Internet-based technical training programme is also being developed within this project, which will enable the users in their homes or daily centres to update their knowledge in all areas pertaining to their tele- working activity (or in other areas as well). The current work is partly an extension of a previous TIDE project (TP1108, HS-ADEPT) and is supported by the European Commission under the HORIZON initiative for employment.

INTRODUCTION

A brief overview of Information Technology and Communications (ITC) and its impact in our daily life is first presented, with an emphasis on the potential synergy of combining the global communications infrastructure (such as the Internet) and the home computing applications foreseen for the near future. The specific requirements of users with special needs are then considered, in order to help us define the basic characteristics of a tele-working environment at their homes or on a daily centre. The solutions being developed in the ESTIA project are then presented, followed by some concluding remarks concerning our future plans for this work.

ITC AND "INTELLIGENT" ENVIRONMENTS

"Where do you want to go today?" is an international slogan used by the PC software giant Microsoft in a worldwide advertisement campaign to promote their view of the future home and office computing applications. This slogan was certainly the result of much brainstorming activity and is a good evidence that low-cost appliances of the near future (such as multimedia computing platforms with TV and Internet access) will enable interactive applications that will radically change our concepts of work, study, communication, leisure activities, etc. Global communication infrastructures, already reaching our homes through Internet, will enable new services with a tremendous potential to improve our quality of life. The expression "information technologies and communications" is broadly used to describe this combination of global networks, computers and professional / recreational software. The decreasing cost of microelectronic components, on the other hand, holds the promise of powerful and low-cost devices that already find applications in many tasks where cost was formerly an exclusion factor. One of such areas is the networking of appliances in the home, which enables the development of what is frequently referred as "intelligent" environments. This technological infrastructure is already present in many office buildings today ("building management systems" or "intelligent buildings"), but its transfer to the home environment (the so-called "home systems" [1,2]) is just now starting to become possible due to the synergy resulting from several factors: lower cost solutions, simpler and more efficient user interface techniques, decreasing "technophobia" because people are more and more acquainted with computers and electronic appliances, and even simply because an intelligent environment is a better match to a home office. Earlier home systems / intelligent buildings were mostly restricted to remote control or building automation functions, but recent solutions and laboratory research are largely oriented towards a functionality which is closer to what we would commonly understand as an "intelligent" environment.

The combination of ITC and intelligent environments enables a vision of unprecedented opportunities which are the central concept of the ESTIA project.

REQUIREMENTS OF USERS WITH SPECIAL NEEDS

ITC and intelligent environments will very soon introduce major changes in our offices and homes, which will become less and less differentiated [3,4,5]. Many people have already set up their home offices and adopted tele-working as a common way to carry out their professional activities. The basic technological infrastructure to enable tele-working (working in a home office) is easy to set up and consists of a suitable computing platform (currently a Pentium PC with a fax / modem card) and a connection to the external communication networks (frequently through the public telephone network, ISDN or not, which enables voice / data / fax transfer and eventually access to Internet services such as electronic mail, World Wide Web access and newsgroups discussions). Although of low- cost (normally in the range of $1.000 to $3.000 UD dollars), this set up is able to greatly simplify many of our fundamental daily tasks in the professional area (both for work and for education / training), in the social area and (last but not least) in the recreational area.

It is interesting to notice that while social isolation is frequently referred as a main disadvantage of tele-working and general ITC-based interaction procedures, the very same technology can have the opposite effect when it comes to persons with special needs. Electronic communication does indeed provide a very flexible framework adaptable to a wide range of personal characteristics, such as communication ability, mobility requirements, preferred working hours, etc. [6] The two main issues to be considered in relation to the target public of persons with special needs are the provision of effective access to computers and software applications, and the adequacy of the home / office environment to the specific profile of each individual user. These two issues are the main working areas of the ESTIA project, which will now be presented in more detail.

THE ESTIA PROJECT

The ESTIA project will deliver a tele-working environment for people with special needs. In order to enable this objective, a number of solutions have already been partially developed:

• a home systems infrastructure which enables the user remote control of all appliances in his / her environment
• a software application that enables single-switch control of this intelligent office / home environment
• a software application which uses the same switch to emulate the mouse
• a software application which uses the same switch to emulate the keyboard

The three software applications referred above were all developed for Windows 95 and have been integrated into one software package that provides integrated access and control in this tele-working environment. The two following sections describe the intelligent office environment and the integrated access and control tool.

THE INTELLIGENT OFFICE ENVIRONMENT

The intelligent office environment is based on a low-cost CAN (Control Area Network) bus interconnecting those home appliances which the user may wish to control. CAN started to be used a few years ago in the automotive industry to interconnect simple devices using a twisted pair cable and has since expanded to much diversified application areas, from medical equipment to industry automation and home systems. The basic concept of this network is to enable fast transfer of short messages among the interconnected devices, using a communications infrastructure with very low cost and excellent reliability.

The current prototype of the intelligent office environment interconnects actuators for windows, shutters, curtains and doors, general purpose power sockets and lights (on/off and dimmer). Any appliance in this network can be remotely controlled through the Magellan application that will now be described.

THE INTEGRATED ACCESS AND CONTROL TOOL

A Windows 95 tool named Magellan was developed to fulfil the three requirements referred above: full environmental control, mouse and keyboard emulation.

The Magellan user interface is based on a scanning technique with linear or row / column scanning and programmable speed. The user can add or remove "buttons" to initiate actions in the following functional groups: environmental control ("command" buttons, which send the corresponding action information to the CAN bus via the RS- 232C port), AAC ("message" buttons, which reproduce digitised speech using a standard sound card internal to the PC), telephone calls ("telephone" buttons, which place a telephone call using the internal modem card), general Windows applications ("application" buttons, which launch the corresponding Windows 95 application) and mouse emulation ("mouse" button). Whenever a Windows application is launched (such as Word or Excel, for example), the mouse and keyboard emulation applications are automatically launched as well. Besides the type of buttons just described, the user can also add / remove "menu" buttons, which allow him / her to group the existing buttons according to their functional type (menu buttons enable the construction of hierarchical menu structures).

The mouse emulation application is based on a small 6-button interface with linear scanning: the "exit" button (returning control to the main Magellan interface), the "move" button (to initiate cursor movement), the "direction" button (a rotating arrow to specify cursor movement direction), the "click" and "double-click" buttons, and the "keyboard" button (transfers control to the keyboard emulation application and enables the user to start typing). The keyboard emulation application has both linear and row / column scanning and uses the same input switch to select which characters are to be typed (into the Word or Excel file contents, for example).

Each work session will typically include the following main steps: the office environment is adapted to the required conditions using the environmental control menus in the Magellan main interface. The user can then proceed to communication menus (AAC or telephone) or launch the Windows application required for his / her work. Once the required application is running, the mouse emulation application (embedded in Magellan) will enable any actions that might require cursor control (for example, to open a file in the Windows Explorer application). After concluding the cursor control actions, the user would normally transfer control to the keyboard emulation application (using the "keyboard" button in the mouse emulation application) and start typing. When typing is concluded, the user will return to the mouse emulation application to save his work, to fax it using the internal fax / modem card, to print it, etc. (keyboard emulation includes a button to return control to mouse emulation).

CONCLUDING REMARKS

The evaluation phase has recently started using the prototype system described in this paper (CAN-based office control and Magellan tool). The positive feedback available so far is mainly related to the following aspects:

• acquaintance with the system is easy to achieve, since the same access procedure is used in all three components of the Magellan tool (environmental control, AAC and telephone / mouse emulation / keyboard emulation)
• it is easy to define an evolutionary strategy which starts with a basic Magellan interface in a single area (environmental control, AAC, etc.) and then proceed to more complete solutions up to hierarchical menus allowing full office control and office computing work
• user interface customisation is a very simple process, since the same Magellan tool is also used for user interface design (no specific software engineering skills are required, since the data to be associated with each new button is fetched from a library of alternatives shown by a dialog box for each type of button) Initial experiences suggested improvement in the user customisation options, which now include alternatives ranging from scanning technique and speed to background colour preferences.

The current work and future plans at this stage are essentially in the area of user evaluation schemes and in the planning of technical training actions through Internet. A course design tool has recently been concluded which enables the development of course material to be lectured through a world wide web (WWW) page, allowing the users at their home offices to use the Magellan tool to follow training actions in the areas of their interest (for example, on how to design web pages, or on how to use Word for word processing).

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work is being developed in the framework of the European HORIZON initiative for employment, under a contract with the Portuguese Ministry for Qualification and Employment.

REFERENCES

[1] J. M. Ferreira et al., Home Systems technology for elderly and disabled people: Present status, R&D methodology and future directions, Proc. of the RESNA 94 Annual Conference, pp. 45-47, Nashville, 1994.

[2] J. Ekberg et al., Smart homes for supporting independent living, Proc. of the 2nd TIDE Congress, pp. 383-386, Paris, 1995.

[3] M. Rubinstein, L'impact de la domotique sur les fonctions urbaines, Fondation Europeenne pour l'amelioration des conditions de vie et de travail, 1993, ISBN 92-826-6310-8.

[4] L. Mandeville, Towards the superhome (bringing home the IT revolution), RDMP Limited, 1995, ISBN 0 907923 31 3.

[5] A. Venkatesh, Computers and other interactive technologies for the home, Communications of the ACM, Dec. 1996, pp. 47-54.

[6] J. C. Hough, Telematics: Opportunities for employment for disabled people, Proc. of the 3rd European Conference on the Advancement of Rehabilitation Technology,pp.317-319, Lisboa,1995.