MARA

A virtual human as a companion

The ideal personal assistant is available anytime and anywhere but does not attract attention if not needed. In addition to that, he has access to all (relevant) personal information about the user and to further databases and is utterly reliable. Since a human assistant is not able to accomplish all of these demands, we are developing an alternative choice. A virtual character whose appearance, behaviour and communication are derived from a human can be a worthy substitute and bring along the advantages of an electronic assistance system at the same time. Realistically superimposed onto the user’s view of his physical environment, the anthropomorphic (human-like) assistant accompanies his user wherever he goes and always reacts to commands or answers questions.

Multimodal user interface

With the multimodal user interface that allows also people with little computer experience to interact intuitively with the assistant, such an assistance system can replace common handheld devices like PDAs and smartphones. It can provide enhanced functionality while the complexity for the user decreases significantly. By speech input and output the user communicates with the virtual assistant as if he were human. Tracking the user’s looking direction the assistant knows e.g. which object is in interest of the user at the moment or which one he talks about.

Personal Information Management and Location Based Services

To show the potential of this novel approach we have implemented two kinds of functions in our demo system: PIM functionality (Personal Information Management, e.g. calendar and notebook functions) and location based services like navigation functions and the elaborate presentation of buildings and other sights. Furthermore, the functions intertwine, e.g. the user is reminded of a scheduled appointment and, if desired, guided to the appointment location. After arriving there the assistant can again present local objects and give further information. The required information about real objects and paths is kept in a simple-to-extend special database, a so-called environment model.

Display with Augmented Reality in the mobile system

The assistant - in our demo system a virtual lady - is superimposed onto the user’s view by Augmented Reality technology. For this purpose the user wears a head-worn display. The position is determined by a GPS receiver, the looking direction by an orientation sensor.