Site Administration: Using Pressure Sensor

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Site Administration Using Pressure Sensor

• Akhil Pai
• Ramkumar Chandrasekaran

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Introduction/Outline

• Motivation
• Problem Definition
• Existing System in our own computing sites
• Our Proposal, which we propose to be a better
  solution
• Architecture/Design involved
• Implementation/Assumptions from Demo point of
  view
• Results
• Screen Shots
• Conclusion and Future Work

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Motivation

• To get a feel of a ubiquitous computing system by
  implementing one, which involves reducing
  distraction and time spent by a user, in a real
  life scenario.
• Why Computing Site ? We can see that in a vast
  open computing site or work place, it is
  difficult for the staff or higher officials to
  identify the available or abandoned workstations
  unless they walk through the entire site. This
  requires a lot of energy and time, while it also
  creates a lot of distraction for the Staff.

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Problem Definition

• The need for manually performing few activities
  which cause the site staff to spend his/her
  precious time in just walking around the site in
  regular short intervals. We could reduce this and
  thus provide time for the staff, to spend
  effectively and productively.
• Thus the need to implement pressure sensors on
  the chairs of the computing site and develop an
  application which would use this information to
  analyze the state or context of a site at any
  time.

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Existing System in our computing sites

• The staff is supposed to walk around the site
  every 5 mins and perform the activity manually
  everytime.
• He/She is required to check for open workstations
  and then place the cone stating PC Open on top
  of it, so that customers could easily identify
  the available workstations on the site. Thus
  improving the customer service.
• He/She is also required to keep track of any
  workstation which has been left unattended and
  also keep note of the time. Once this time
  exceeds 15 mins, he/she could log the customer
  out, according to the site policy.

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Our Proposal/Objective

• We plan to build a context aware application,
  which will help to reduce the site staffs time
  and distraction from such activities and help him
  concentrate on other duties he/she is required to
  perform.
• We decided to keep track or be aware (context
  aware) of the site state by implementing pressure
  sensors to detect if a user is available at a
  workstation or not.
• Hence we thought, this would keep track of the
  open workstations and also the abandoned
  workstations, which could then be displayed using
  a good GUI.

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Basic Architecture
                       
 
Pressure Switch
          DISPLAY /GUI
Application
Server Login info
Time flag
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Design
Login Info 0 logged on, 1
logged off Pressure Switch 0
activated, 1 inactivated Timer flag
0 default and until Tlt15 for (1,0)
condition 1 Tgt15
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Implementation/Assumptions

• The application was developed using Visual Basic
  and MS-Access as the database.
• The application is set to refresh every minute.
• We are making the assumption of using one and
  only that particular chair for each workstation.
• The pressure sensor has a default minimum weight,
  in order to be activated.
• The values from the sensor is being simulated by
  user input.

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Results

• The application as predicted provides information
  regarding the free and available workstations to
  the staff, which reduces his/her distraction and
  time spent in these activities.
• The application further provides information to
  the customer in identifying the available
  workstations at any point of time in the site.
  This helps the customer to reach an open
  workstation easily and with least assistance.

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Screen Shots

• Login screen
• Sensor Simulation screen
• Staff Display screen
• Customer Display screen

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Conclusion

• The motivation behind creating a context aware
  ubiquitous computing system which could be used
  in a real life scenario was successful.
• We wanted to identify a problem which is relevant
  enough in day to day life and then create a
  solution for it that would really serve the
  purpose.
• We are very satisfied from the outcome and
  results of the project, which helped us to
  realize how ubiquitous computing systems could be
  effective in every day life to make life easy.

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Future Work

• The application can be further extended to
  provide excellent customer service. This can be
  done by providing means for a customer to send a
  help message to the site staff from their
  respective workstation. Hence reducing the
  overall mobility in the site and providing a
  study environment.
• A better and energy efficient sensor system could
  be built in order to identify the availability of
  a customer at each workstation.

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Questions