This is a position paper that introduces intention awareness (IA) as a counterfactual approach for designing IA technologies. The approach distinguishes human intention as a premise for developing intention-aware systems. Intention-aware technologies utilise information about the user's intentions to improve the services that are provided by the environment. The paper will initially define intention awareness as a concept, and subsequently introduce four scenarios that illustrate the approach.

This paper reports the results of a field experiment where a Near Field Communication (NFC) enabled mobile phone was used as a user interface element so as to enable home-dwelling elderly people to choose their meals to be delivered by means of a home care service. The primary research focus was on examining the suitability of a touch-based user interface in the everyday life activities of elderly users. The eight-week experiment took place in the autumn of 2006. The results show that the touch-based user interface was easy to learn and adopt and the users were able to successfully use it regardless of their physical or cognitive weaknesses.

Identifying users of portable devices from gait signals acquired with three-dimensional accelerometers was studied. Three approaches, correlation, frequency domain and data distribution statistics, were used. Test subjects (N=36) walked with fast, normal and slow walking speeds in enrolment and test sessions on separate days wearing the accelerometer device on their belt, at back. It was shown to be possible to identify users with this novel gait recognition method. Best equal error rate (EER=7%) was achieved with the signal correlation method, while the frequency domain method and two variations of the data distribution statistics method produced EER of 10%, 18% and 19%, respectively.

Optical coordinate measurement systems will benefit from developments similar to those taking place in robots, namely off-line programming capability and intelligent sensors. Research work towards these goals is reported here. An experimental system with CAD model-based measurement planning and vision control has been constructed and its feasibility demonstrated. The system comprises a measurement planning tool, a measurement robot with vision guidance and a means of visualizing and comparing the measured results with the design data. The measurement planning tool is based on a commercial CAD system and enables the use of existing CAD models of the objects to be measured as a basis for planning. It generates a measurement model file (MMF) containing instructions for controlling the measurement robot, which is an optical coordinate measurement device based on the laser rangefinder principle and supplemented with a vision system for guiding the measurement to planned target points. The measured coordinate values can be compared with design values either graphically or numerically. The performance of the experimental system was demonstrated and evaluated. In the demonstration case a measurement sequence was planned and saved in the form of a MMF, whereupon the measurement robot was able to execute the sequence reliably according to the MMF and measure the planned target points with vision guidance. The pointing repeatability of the vision guidance function was 0.019 mRad (standard deviation), which is equal to 0.19 mm at a distance of 10 meters, and the corresponding pointing accuracy was better than 0.04 mRad. The 3D measurement had an average repeatability of 0.3 mm (standard deviation), and the absolute accuracy of averaged measurement results was better than ±1 mm (for x, y and z) in 81% of the cases. The next phase of the work will include piloting the system in an industrial application.

An image analysis method was developed for the inspection of rotating blades of steam turbines. The method consists of three parts: (1) detecting the eventual crack points, (2) locating the cluster of these points, i.e. the eventual crack; and (3) following and analyzing the eventual crack. A computer vision system was constructed to implement the method. The system has been tested during shutdowns in a Finnish power plant.>

The need for 3-D computer vision in robot control, measurement of object geometry and autonomous vehicle navigation is clear. Many current 3-D schemes rely on algebraic surface representation methods. This paper presents a parametric surface representation method based on the Ferguson surface patch. A parametric representation method appears to be better for describing free form surfaces than algebraic methods. This kind of method may also advance the integration of CAD/CAM and computer vision.