Intelligent environments and active camera networks

Intelligent environments provide challenging research problems for natural and efficient interfaces between humans and computers as well as between humans. In this paper we present a multimodal sensory intelligent system testbed based on some general requirements for developing intelligent environments. We also present rigorous experimental investigations on the processing and control modules for the active camera networks and the microphone array which are embedded in the intelligent room. An integrated intelligent system is developed utilizing four basic modules for visual and audio processing. The integrated system has the functionality of human tracking, active camera control, face recognition, and speaker recognition. This system is demonstrated to be suitable for teleconferencing type of applications.