`Richard W. DeVaul`

MIT Media Lab Wearable Computing Researcher Toshiba Fellow Ph.D. Candidate, Human Design (the group formerly known as Perceptual Computing) Alumnus of the Aesthetics and Computation Group

`Introduction`

I am a full-time wearable computing researcher, working on context-aware wearable computing applications and platform issues. MIThril is my primary project right now, and developing a Memory Glasses prototype application using the MIThril framework.

There are many reasons why a general-purpose, context-aware personal wearable computer makes sense. Here are only a few:

There is the "gadget creep" problem, which is that the number of specialized consumer devices (cell phones, PDAs, "smart-cards," etc.) are growing rapidly, but that the space in our pockets and on our belts remains constant.
Wireless communications applications are exploding, but it makes as little sense to have multiple incompatible digital wireless network interfaces on your body as having a separate physical network card for each networked application on your desktop computer.
Context aware applications are becoming increasingly feasible and desirable, but duplicating context sensors and signal processing hardware makes even less sense than redundant wireless network interfaces.
A general purpose wearable allows the user to consolidate the most important and personal information about themselves, to use that information effectively, and to maintain control over that information without relying on trusted third parties or non-portable infrastructure. General-purpose wearable computing consolidates your personal information and helps preserve your privacy.
General-purpose wearable computing, if done correctly, allows the user to coordinate and manage the demands on time and attention of all of her digital applications, which if they are packaged separately and function independently becomes a much harder problem.

`MIThrihl`

MIThril is the Media Lab's next-generation wearables research platform. MIThril is light, ergonomic, flexible, scalable, and truly wearable. MIThril is intended for context-aware HCI research and a wide variety of general-purpose wearable computing research applications For more information on MIThril, see the MIThril homepage.

`MIT + IDEO Design Study`

I participated in a design study with IDEO to explore the "human side" of wearable computing. The result is one take on what a consumer wearable might be like, focusing on the needs of two very different hypothetical wearable users. Here are the results. Note: This is a design-study only; please don't send me email asking where to buy these, I've had dozens of requests already...

`The Ektara Architecture`

The Ektara architecture is an old proposal for a functional architecture for building real, multi-application context-aware wearable and ubiquitous computing systems. The architecture follows from a critical feature analysis of existing context-aware wearable/ubiquitous applications and systems. The ideas ar good but the underlying platform, Hive, has somewhat evaporated. You can read a technical report describing this architecture is available here in gzip compressed postscript and pdf.

`Research Goals and Long-term Projects`

Here is a somewhat fragmentary list of some of the projects I'm currently working on. This list is updated only occasionally, and is generally incomplete.

Platform Development for Context-aware Wearable Computing Research
Platform development includes hardware and software. Most of these efforts are directed toward the the MIThril project. My MIThril system, pictured at the top of the page, is now my full-time wearable, and makes the previous Plug-N-Run system obsolete.

`Current Research Projects`

The MIThril project
The Memory Glasses Project
The memory glasses project is an attempt to build a proactive situation-aware reminder system based on high-bandwidth context sensing techniques.
Lightweight Infrastructure for Context Aware Wearable Computing
Context aware wearable computing applications can be made simpler and more robust through the use of lightweight infrastructure, such as inexpensive infra-red or radio frequency tags.
- The Crystal Tag system
  Ari Y. Benbasat and I developed the Crystal Tag IR active tag system in the summer of 1999. The Crystal Tag system is an active IR tag system suitable for tagging areas, objects, and even people. The system is based on the Squirt board developed by Ari (a very small, low-cost design based on the PIC 12C508) and PIC code I adapted from the earlier Locust project. The result is an IR tag about the size of a quarter with a total production cost of $10 in quantities of 500 or so, including the battery which provides (in the new version) a solid two weeks of performance with a 1-second transmission duty cycle. After the initial development in '99 project languised with slightly buggy tags and busy researchers. Josh Weaver has stepped in and, working with Ari and I, developed the next version of the tag board and software which fixes all of the known problems with the old system and adds useful new features. The schematics, code, and other details for the Squirt board and Crystal Tag application really will be available through this web site soon.
- The Light-bulb Project
  The light-bulb project is an (as yet) conceptual project to explore harvesting parasitic power from buildings to power light-weight wearables-support infrastructure. The goal is to develop simple systems (in the form of a screw-in light-bulb socket, an extension cord, etc.) that plug into existing building infrastructure and power low-power devices like active tags or short-range RF network transponders. Because the power requirements are low, the light-bulb socket or extension cord which houses the parasitic device can also be used as a conventional socket or extension cord.
Wearable Hardware Projects
- USBiRX! Board - work in progress
  The USBiRX! board is a microcontroler-based USB and RS232 enabled system (it operates as a generic 4 port USB hub with the microcontroler as a 5th USB device on the hub) for multi-purpose wearable-integrated data collection and sensing. The microcontroler (a PIC16C76 clocked at 20MHz) provides 4 general-purpose A/D pins, an I²C bus, and a number of general-purpose I/O pins. The microcontroler is integrated with the USB hub interface chip, an RS232 line-level converter, and a large I²C flash or EEPROM for on-board storage. The production USBiRX! "motherboard" is a compact surface-mount design with a row of connector pins at one edge allowing a variety of custom application daughter-boards to be designed with hardware and connectors tailored for specific applications. It is intended to be used as a multi-sensor data-gathering system for low-bandwidth applications.