MavHome: An Intelligent Home
Environment
Computer Science and Engineering Department
The University of Texas at Arlington
Participants
Diane Cook
Sharma Chakravarthy
Sajal Das
Piotr Gmystraciewicz
Larry Holder
Manfred Huber
Farhad Kamangar
Ramesh Yerraballi
Motivations
Unified project incorporating varied AI
techniques
High visibility
Possible commercial implications
Smart House
Automated blinds
Door/lock
controllers,
Face
recognition,
Surveillance
system
Climate
control appliances
Intelligent
automated
door
entry
Remote site
monitoring
control
Assistance
for and
disabilities
Robot vacuum cleaner
Robot lawnmower
Intelligent Entertainment
Smart sprinklers
Lighting control
State of the Art
Resource rich
Software poor (no communication, no adaptability)
MavHome
UTA Project Unique
– Focus on entire home
House perceives and acts
– Sensors
– Controllers for devices
– Connections to the mobile user and Internet
House optimizes goal function
–
–
–
–
Maximize inhabitant comfort
Minimize cost
Maximize user productivity
Maximize security
Projects
CSE Projects
– MavHome Agent Design (Piotr Gmytrasiewicz, Manfred Huber)
– Predicting inhabitant and house behaviors (Diane Cook, Larry
Holder)
– Robot assistance (Manfred Huber, Diane Cook)
– Multi-agent communication (Piotr Gmytrasiewicz)
– Web monitoring and control (Farhad Kamangar)
– Distributed sensor fusion (Farhad Kamangar)
– Database monitoring (Sharma Chakravarthy)
– Multimedia traffic for entertainment and security (Ramesh
Yerraballi)
– Intelligent routing, mobility prediction (Sajal Das)
Cross-Disciplinary Projects
 Smart materials and structures (Civil Engineering)
 Nano structures (Electrical Engineering)
 Device communication (Telcordia Technologies)
Predicting User Actions
Sequence learning
– (state, action) frequencies
– Frequencies + history length
– MDP learning
Other factors
– Time of day
– Weather, health, mood, device states
Proposed MavHome Site
MavHome
MavHome Layout
UTA Design
– School of Architecture
– Faculty/student designs compete
First floor showcases
technologies
– Hold receptions and meetings
– Regular visitor hours
– Webcams and virtual Internet
tours
First Floor
Second floor used for classes,
research, and seminars
Second Floor
Sources of Funding
NSF ITR proposal pending, $5M
Texas ATP forthcoming, $200k
NIH (assistance for people with disabilities), DARPA
(military applications) to be contacted
David Yates
– Builder of the Intelligent Home of Tomorrow at the State Fair
– Will contribute house
AT&T, contribute networking and cash
Nortel, $100k to Das for research
Friendly Robotics, robot donation
Motorola, Nokia, Dallas Semiconductor interested