Towards a Platform for Widespread Embedded Intelligence - ERCIM

SPECIAL THEME: Embedded Intelligence
sions and a range of behaviours can give
the robot a personality and which type of
personality would be most appropriate
during interaction with users for certain
applications. Research with iCat has
focused on the evaluation of application
concepts for iCat, for example as a game
buddy for children or as a TV assistant.
The research questions in these studies
were: “What personality do users
prefer?” and “What level of control do
they prefer?”
The results of the user study with the
iCat as game buddy indicated that children
preferred to play games with the
iCat rather than to play these same
games with a computer. They were able
to recognise differences in personalities
between differently programmed versions
of iCat. Overall, the more extrovert
and sociable iCat was preferred to a
more neutral personality.
Young and middle-aged adults were also
able to recognise differences in person-
22 ERCIM News No. 67, October 2006
ality in iCat as a TV assistant. In this
study two personalities were combined
with two levels of control. In the high
control condition, iCat used a speechbased
command-and-control interaction
style, whereas in the low control condition
it used a speech-based, system-initiated
natural language dialogue style. The
preferred combination was an extrovert
and friendly personality with low usercontrol.
One of the most interesting results was
that the personality of the robot influenced
the level of control that people
perceived. This is very relevant in the
context of intelligent systems that work
autonomously to take tedious tasks out
of the hands of humans. It suggests that
the robot's personality can be used as a
means to increase the amount of control
that users perceive.
Conclusion
The studies with iCat have shown that
mechanically-rendered emotions and
The DECOS Tool-Chain: Model-Based
Development of Distributed Embedded
Safety-Critical Real-Time Systems
by Wolfgang Herzner, Bernhard Huber, György Csertan and Andras Balogh
'Smart systems' applications like adaptive cruise control or brake-by-wire, rely
on predictable and reliable embedded system platforms as infrastructure. For the
development of such dependable applications, it is therefore of crucial interest
to avoid faults during design and development. Besides intensive testing, an
important way of minimising the risk of faults is by controlling the design and
development process, as well as maximising the coherence of the resulting system
with the initial requirements. The model-based tool-chain developed by the DECOS
project is described.
Today, the development of embedded -
and in particular safety-critical - systems
in general follows a customized design
approach, resulting in rather isolated
applications and little reuse of components
and code across different application
domains. For instance, in modern
cars sub-systems like power-train control,
advanced driver assistance systems
or the body electronic co-exist, each
equipped with its own electronic hardware,
communication cabling etc. This
approach implies at least increased hardware
costs, weight, and power consumption,
last not least due to severely hampering
the sharing of resources like sensors
among the different sub-systems.
Therefore, the European project DECOS
aims at developing basic enabling technology
for moving from federated to
integrated distributed architectures in
order to reduce development, validation
and maintenance costs, and increase the
behaviours can have a significant effect
on the way users perceive – and interact
with – robots. Moreover, users prefer to
interact with a socially-intelligent robot
for a range of applications, compared to
more conventional interaction means. A
range of further studies is planned. One
of the questions that will be addressed is
how iCat should behave to inspire trust
and compliance in users, important if
one thinks of the robot cat as a personal
(health) trainer, for example.
Links:
http://www.hitech-projects.com/icat
Please contact:
Bernt Meerbeek, Philips Research Europe,
The Netherlands
Tel: +31 40 27 47535
E-mail: bernt.meerbeek@philips.com
Albert van Breemen, Philips Research
Europe, The Netherlands
Tel: +31 40 27 47864
E-mail: albert.van.breemen@philips.com
dependability of embedded applications
in various application domains.
'Integrated' means, that several software
'IP'-blocks (Intellectual Property) of different
criticality can be allocated to one
node (ECU – Electronic Control Unit)
without interfering with each other, ie,
guaranteed encapsulation in space
(memory) and time (each job has its
reserved time slot).
DECOS presumes the existence of a core
architecture providing the core services:
• deterministic and timely message
transport
• fault tolerant clock synchronisation
• strong fault isolation
• consistent diagnosis of failing nodes.
Any core architecture providing these
services (eg TTP/C, FlexRay, or Time-