Homepage of Dipl.-Inform. Andreas Heil





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Research

Application Models for Intelligent Environments in the World Wide Web

The project 'Application Models in Intelligent Environments' is a scholarship funded by the Microsoft Research PhD Scholarship Programme and thus contributes directly to the research field of the Distributed and Self-organizing Computer Systems Group. The project investigates the phenomenon of increasing intelligent environments consisting of a wide range of services and devices such as sensors, actors, and as a large amount of communication capabilities, directly or implicitly connected and interacting with users. The research covers a formal model describing such system-wide interrelationships and the development of an interaction platform. Due to the emergence of large amounts of data, a sophisticated communication mechanism is developed that enables the end-user to recognize and resolves conflicts and interfering actions e.g. raised due to the heterogeneous behavior of various devices such as mobile devices and sensors. The hereby developed models and components found the base for a systematic engineering process of typical interaction systems using Web technologies.

This research includes various topics including Web Engineering, Software Engineering practices, formal models and interaction with hardware devices. If you are interested in contributing to this field of research (Studienarbeit/Diplomarbeit), feel free to contact me directly.

Past Research

Project Website Image

Tool Screenshot
Autonomous Monitoring of Vulnerable Habitats
Microsoft Research Cambridge, UK, Oxford University, UK, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany

In this project we have developed an innovative system that can autonomously monitor animals and their habitats. Using a combination of wireless sensor networks and innovative software we are able to intelligently gather data from remote locations, relaying it back for local storage and processing and allow remote reconfiguration of the network by research scientists.

Selected Publications
Naumowicz, T., Freeman, R., Heil, A., Calsyn, M., Hellmich, E., Brändle, A., Guilford, T., Schiller, J., Autonomous Monitoring of Vulnerable Habitats using a Wireless Sensor Network in REALWSN'08 Workshop on Real-World Wireless Sensor Networks In conjunction with ACM EuroSys 2008, Glassgow, UK, 1st April, 2008.

ICWE06

Informatiktage 2006
Federated Device Assemblies (FDX)
University of Karlsruhe (TH), Germany; Microsoft Research Cambridge, UK; Universität Stuttgart, Germany

Federated Device Assemblies (FDX) allow to federate device functionality across organisational boundaries based on Web service technologies. This is achieved by describing devices functionality in a machine readable abstraction. Using Web service technologies allows to access e.g. already existing security concepts.

Publications

Heil, A., Knoll M., Weis, T. The Internet of Things - Context-Based Device Federations. In Proceedings of Hawaii International Conference on System Science 2007 (HICSS-40), Hawaii, USA, Jan 2007.

Gedke, M., Meinecke, J., Heil, A. FDX - Federating Devices and Web Applications. In Proceedings of The Sixth International Conference on Web Engineering (ICWE06). Palo Alto, California, USA, Jul 11 - 4, 2006, pp. 95-102.

Heil, A., Thiele, C., Alles Verbunden - Von UPnP zur Geräte-Föderation. In Lecture Notes in Informatics, Informatiktage 2006, Fachwissenscahftlicher Informatik-Kongress. pp. 95-100. Bonn, Germany, Mar 31 - Apr 1, 2006.

Heil, A. Federated Device- and Service-Management with Web Technologies, Thesis. University of Karlsruhe (TH), Karlsruhe, Germany. Dec 31, 2005.

Heil, A. Föderatives Geräte- und Dienstemanagement mit Web-Technologien, Thesis (deutsche Kurzfassung). University of Karlsruhe (TH), Karlsruhe, Germany. Dec 31, 2005.

Further Readings
Thiele, C., Integration von UPnP-Geräten über eine generische Webservice-Schnittstelle, Student Research Paper. University of Kalrsruhe (TH), Germany. Feb, 2006.
VRDK

VRDK

VRDK
Visual Robot Development Kit - VRDK
Microsoft Research Cambridge, UK; TU Berlin, Germany; Universtät Stuttgart, Germany

The Visual Robot Development Kit (VRDK) was oringinally developed by Andreas Ulbrich and Torben Weis at the Technische Universität Berlin, Germany. The VRDK introduced the conept of meta programming different kinds of device, e.g., heterogeneous hardware specifications and runtime environments in a distributed environment. Written entirely in .NET the VRDK was extended by several target platforms such as fischertechnik, a modified Robosapien but also for software as Internet Explorer or Windows Media Player. The VRDK was used for further research at the University of Stuttgart, Germany. Basically the research for programming robots using the VRDK is not continued anymore since several research result ended up in the Microsoft Robotics Studio.

Publications

Heil, A., Moradi, I., Weis, T., LCARS - The Next Generation Programming Context. Context in Advances interfaces, International Workshop in conjunction with AVI 2006. Venice, Italy, May 23, 2006.

Invited Talks

Heil, A., Ethics in AI. SGAI 2006 - Intelligent Robotics Workshop, Cambridge, UK, Dec 11, 2006.

Heil, A., Brändle, A., Lightweight Concurrency: A Distributed Platform for Creating Robotics Applications, HUMANOIDS'06 - 2006 IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots, Humanoid Technologies Workshop. Genova, Italy. Dec 4, 2006.

Brändle, A., Heil, A., The VRDK robotics graphical programming environment. SGAI 2005 - Reaching Out With Intelligent Robotics Workshop. Cambridge, UK, Dec 12, 2005.

Further Readings

Weis, T., Knoll, M., Ulbrich, A., Mühl G., Brändle, A., Rapid Prototyping for Pervasive Applications, In IEEE Pervasive Computing, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 76-84, Apr-Jun, 2007.
AES

AES
Anforderungsentwicklungssystem - AES
University of Karlsruhe (TH), Germany

As part of the Center of Excellence SFB346 "Rechnerintegrierte Konstruktion und Fertigung von Bauteilen", I spent four years with the Institute of Computer Applications in Design and Planning (RPK) University of Karlsruhe (TH). There we developed a distributed requirements engineering tool. The tool (AES) was integrated into the so-called "SFB-Desktop", a CORBA-based approach to integrate different distributed tools into a uniform user interface. Entirely written in Java, the rule-based Expert System Jess was applied to solve conflicts during the requirement engineering process. To achieve the project goals innovative concepts for information- and knowledge processing have been developed.

Publications

Heil, A., Konzeption und Realisierung eines Anforderungsentwicklungssystems in Verteilter Umgebung, Student Research Paper. University of Karlsruhe (TH), Karlsruhe, Germany, May, 2000.

Further Readings

Gebauer M., Kooperative Produktentwicklung auf Basis verteilter Anforderungen, Shaker Verlag, 2001, ISBN 978-3-8265-9200-X.

Review Activities

  • International World Wide Web Conference (WWW)
  • IEEE Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications (PerCom)
  • IEEE International Conference on Web Services (ICWS)
  • International Conference on Web Engineering (ICWE)
  • International Workshop on Web Usability and Accessibility (IWWUA)
  • Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. Informatik)
  • International Conference on Mobile Ubiquitous Computing (UBICOMM)
  • Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS)
  • Model-Driven Web Engineering Workshop (MDWE)
  • Guest Editor on IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering on Automation and Engineering for Ambient Intelligence

Memberships

  • Fouding Member of International Society for Web Engineering e.V. (ISWE)
  • Professional Member of Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI)
  • Professional Member of Assosciation for Computing Machinery (ACM)
  • Professional Member of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
  • Professional Member of IEEE Computer Society
  • Professional Member of IEEE Robotics and Automation Society