U-TOPIA: Campus-wide Advanced Ubiquitous Computing Environment

U-TOPIA, introduced in this paper, is a campus-wide advanced ubiquitous computing environment. Research in UTOPIA spans various components each of which is essential to realize U-TOPIA: from user device hardware / software, user interface, communication technology, indoor / outdoor testbed, middleware to practical applications. We designed and implemented a wearable computer from the scratch and make use of it as a main user device inside U-TOPIA. In addition to this, as a new user interface, we developed a wireless gesture recognition device, called i-Throw. For data communication and location tracking in U-TOPIA, campuswide indoor and outdoor testbed was installed. To keep up with highly variable dynamic U-TOPIA environment, a new extensible middleware, called u-ware, was developed. Finally, as a practical application for U-TOPIA, we implemented a ubiquitous testbed room where multiple users interact with various ubiquitous devices or other users in a user-friendly manner. Integrating these components all together, we show that U-TOPIA can be a realistic role model to improve current paradigm of ubiquitous computing environment one step forward within a few years.