VTT interface technology for Italian car design
A technically intelligent environment learns and is interactive

Technology developed by VTT which operates through people’s gestures is currently being introduced for research purposes at Italdesign-Giugiaro S. p.a. the Italian car design firm. The same technology is used in wireless terminal equipment user interface research in the Netherlands at the Philips research centre HomeLab.

This VTT technology known as gesture interface was developed using a small object the size of a guest soap and known as SoapBox. Its sensors make it possible to identify people's gestures and direct devices and objects in the environment wireless-free. Thus an individual can control a television, for example, or perhaps an Internet connection from anywhere in the home using manual gestures.

Using the SoapBox developed by VTT to identify gestures and direct the functions of the television. Researcher Juha Kela (front) and researcher Johanna Keisala (back). High resolution image Photo: VTT

Over a period of two years VTT has researched the basic elements of the intelligent environment in 14 person years of research and development work involving TEKES, CCC Software Professionals Oy and NetHawk Oy. This research headed by VTT comes under the mammoth 180 person year Eureka Project, in which Philips, Thomson and France Telecom and 16 other European organisations participate. As part of this project Esa Tuulari of VTT is currently working as a visiting researcher at the Philips research centre in Eindhoven.

An airport terminal, for example, might in the future serve as an intelligent environment. Once a passenger disembarks from a plane the terminal's intelligent wireless space system would perform an identification and guide that passenger to the departure gate for his/her next flight. With the passenger on board the next plane the system would shut off his/her mobile phone.

"In the future a domestic appliance, for example, will monitor its own condition, and in the event of a fault it can be made to request maintenance. Intelligence will be introduced into virtually all appliances, and the need for applications developed for the control of intelligent environments will grow dramatically in the next few years. This VTT research project offers companies a splendid opportunity to develop for the markets intelligent environment applications that are internationally competitive," says CCC Software Professionals head of product development, Jouko Kaasila.

Further information:
www.extra.research.philips.com/euprojects/ambience/

Caption: Esa Tuulari of VTT and Eureka Project Manager Evert van Loenen at the door of Philips' HomeLab. Photo: Philips Research	VTT Electronics Esa Tuulari, researcher, project manager tel. +31 40 274 5685 (Holland) tuulari@natlab.research.philips.com esa.tuulari@vtt.fi
Photo: Marko Niskala	CCC Software Professional Oy Jouko Kaasila, head of R & D (08) 555 88, 040 589 9265 jouko.kaasila@ccc.fi