ArCo : une Architecture informatique pour un Compagnon Artificiel en interaction avec un utilisateur

Abstract

The rapid advance in technology allowed manufacturers to offer a varied panorama of digital devices: camera, mobile phones, GPS, tactile tablets, digital readers, robots, televisions, home automation elements... Nowadays, most of these devices are connected to the Internet. Thus, their users can not only take benefit from their functionalities but also be in touch with "everyone" thanks to communicative software, virtual characters or robots. It raises a main question: do these digital devices have to be coordinated in order to share information and achieve tasks together? This collaboration between digital devices could be managed by an Artificial Companion which could permanently be in touch with a user throughout these devices. We realized a modular architecture called ArCo which allows the creation of an Artificial Companion. Some specialized modules can manage the digital devices. These modules are implemented with a framework called MICE (Machines Interaction Control in their Environment). The end-user can create interaction scenarios with a visual programming interface called AmbiProg. The scenarios contain actions that digital devices have to achieve. Each scenario is interpreted by the AmbiLive module. Digital devices access conflicts are managed by the AmbiCop module. Some experiments validated the ArCo architecture from an experimental point of view. They also allowed studying some Human-Machine Interaction problems.