Management of Distributed RFID Surfaces: A Cooking Assistant for Ambient Computing in Kitchen

Abstract

Interactive tabletops are used to support interaction when designing applications. The design is generally displayed on the detection surface, but in some cases, the display uses other surfaces in a distributed way. This paper proposes some additions of an existing architecture. This new architecture aims for managing distributed surfaces with agent concepts of a Multi-Agent System. The Multi-Agent System proposed in this paper is adapted to the exploitation of tangible and virtual objects allowing them to exchange information. The principles for designing an original cooking application on a distributed interactive tabletop are presented. Multi- Agent System is based on a set of wishes with advanced culinary search capacities. We propose a tabletop equipped with RFID technology and a distributed display to suggest additional information. This tabletop allows interactions with tangible objects (real ingredients) to take place and suggests recipes to the user. The proposed application illustrates the possible use of a tabletop in such an ecological setting. Finally, results obtained from two complementary evaluations are briefly described to validate the new architecture and the cooking application using it.