Schmidt, Albrecht and Strohbach, Martin and Van Laerhoven, Kristof and Friday, Adrian and Gellersen, Hans (2002) Context Acquisition Based on Load Sensing. In: Proceedings of Ubicomp 2002 :. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2498 . Springer Verlag, Göteborg, Sweden, pp. 161-192.
schmidt-loadsensing-ubicomp02-preprint.pdf
Download (3MB)
Abstract
Load sensing is a mature and robust technology widely applied in process control. In this paper we consider the use of load sensing in everyday environments as an approach to acquisition of contextual information in ubiquitous computing applications. Since weight is an intrinsic property of all physical objects, load sensing is an intriguing concept on the physical-virtual boundary, enabling the inclusive use of arbitrary objects in ubiquitous applications. In this paper we aim to demonstrate that load sensing is a versatile source of contextual information. Using a series of illustrative experiments we show that using load sensing techniques we can obtain not just weight information, but object position and interaction events on a given surface. We describe the incorporation of load-sensing in the furniture and the floor of a living laboratory environment, and report on a number of applications that use context information derived from load sensing.