Intelligent total access system

• US 20040117513A1
• Filed: 08/15/2003
• Published: 06/17/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 08/16/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University (Stanford University)
• Original Assignee: Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University (Stanford University)
• Inventors: Scott, Neil G.
• Granted Patent: US 7,363,398 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 710/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/038 Control and interface arrangements therefor, e.g. drivers or device-embedded control circuitry
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/75 Indicating network or usage conditions on the user display
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]

Abstract

A system for interfacing a user with an electronic device. An accessor device provides a user interface matched to the needs, abilities and intentions of the user and translates the user input commands and data into commands for the electronic device. An intelligent access port translates commands from the accessor into an input format required by the electronic device. A communication link connects the accessor device with the intelligent access port to send the translated user input commands and data from the accessor to the intelligent access port. The accessor device contains an intelligent access module and an interactive display. The intelligent access module contains a driver device for routing message packets, an interaction processor for processing incoming message packets and generating a message packet for the electronic device, and a communications channel. Communications between system components take place over a universal serial bus or over a wireless fidelity or ZigBee device. The interactive display can include a touch screen, browser, wireless transceiver and flash storage.

Claims

1. A system for interfacing a user with an electronic device, comprising:

an accessor device that provides a user interface matched to the needs, abilities and intentions of the user and translates the user input commands and data into commands for the electronic device;

an intelligent access port that translates commands from the accessor into an input format required by the electronic device; and

a communication link that connects the accessor device with the intelligent access port to send the translated user input commands and data from the accessor to the intelligent access port.

2. A system for interfacing a user with an electronic device of claim 1 wherein the accessor device comprises an input sensor, an input processor, an interaction processor and a wireless transceiver.

3. The system for interfacing a user with an electronic device of claim 2 wherein the input sensor comprises at least one of a keyboard, a keypad, a mouse, a head tracker, an eye gaze tracker, a microphone, a sonar device, a camera, a biosensor, and an electromagnetic sensor.

4. The system for interfacing a user with an electronic device of claim 2 wherein the input processor amplifies and processes user input actions received from the input sensor and transforms electrical signals into human language descriptions of the user'"'"'s actions.

5. The system for interfacing a user with an electronic device of claim 2 wherein the interaction processor merges a plurality of streams of incoming text, filters out words that are not recognized by the intelligent access port, and extracts user intent from the stream of filtered text.

6. The system for interfacing a user with an electronic device of claim 2 wherein the wireless transceiver provides bi-directional streaming data between the accessor and intelligent access port.

7. The system for interfacing a user with an electronic device of claim 1 wherein the intelligent access port comprises a wireless transceiver, an interaction processor and a device control interface.

8. The system for interfacing a user with an electronic device of claim 7 wherein the wireless transceiver provides bi-directional streaming data between the intelligent access port and accessor and the accessor.

9. The system for interfacing a user with an electronic device of claim 7 wherein the interaction processor merges a plurality of streams of incoming text from the accessor, filters out words that are not recognized by the intelligent access port, and extracts user intent from the stream of filtered text.

10. The system for interfacing a user with an electronic device of claim 9 wherein the device control interface translates user intent into commands that are used by the electronic device.

11. The system for interfacing a user with an electronic device of claim 1 further comprising a plurality of accessor devices which each accessor device classified by a level at which the accessor device is connected.

12. The system for interfacing a user with an electronic device of claim 11 wherein an accessor device comprises a speech recognizer or head tracker providing for specialized user input.

13. The system for interfacing a user with an electronic device of claim 11 wherein an accessor device comprises an electronic tablet or handheld device including a touch screen interface providing individual user access.

14. The system for interfacing a user with an electronic device of claim 11 wherein an accessor device comprises a group accessor including at least one of a pointer and remote keyboard.

15. The system for interfacing a user with an electronic device of claim 14 wherein an accessor device comprises a cluster accessor that merges inputs received from a plurality of group accessors.

16. The system for interfacing a user with an electronic device of claim 11 wherein an accessor device is an intelligent access port that merges commands from a plurality of processors and generates commands for the electronic device.

17. The system for interfacing a user with an electronic device of claim 11 wherein an accessor device comprises an intelligent access module and an interactive display.

18. The system for interfacing a user with an electronic device of claim 1 wherein the electronic device comprises at least one of a computer, an appliance, and an electronically controlled device.

19. The system for interfacing a user with an electronic device of claim 11 wherein each accessor device comprises a cascading interface that connects the accessor device with a lower level accessor device through a communications interface.

20. An accessor device for use in a system including an intelligent access port that interfaces a user with an electronic device, the accessor device comprising an intelligent access module and an interactive display component.

21. The accessor device of claim 20 wherein the intelligent access module comprises a manager component, an interaction processor component and a communications channel.

22. The accessor device of claim 20 wherein the manager component comprises a driver device for selecting the communications channel for accessor-to-accessor and accessor-to-intelligent access port interactions.

23. The accessor device of claim 22 wherein the manager component further comprises a universal serial bus hub that enables the accessor device to connect to a plurality of lower-level accessor devices.

24. The accessor device of claim of claim 21 wherein the interaction processor component comprises an input buffer, an interaction processor and an output buffer.

25. The accessor device of claim 24 wherein the input and output buffers each comprise a static section that describes the accessor device and a dynamic section that contains commands and text messages.

26. The accessor device of claim 24 wherein information is transferred between a lower-level and a higher level accessor device by exchanging an output buffer in the lower-level accessor device with an input buffer in the higher-level accessor device.

27. The accessor device of claim 24 wherein the static section of each buffer includes an accessor identifier, an accessor level, and an accessor path.

28. The accessor device of claim 24 wherein the dynamic section of each buffer includes a session object, an accessor status, a control field, a payload type, a payload destination and a payload.

29. The accessor device of claim 20 wherein the intelligent access module performs all communications with an accessor device at a different level.

30. The accessor device of claim 20 wherein the interactive display provides for user interaction that corresponds to the level of the accessor device in the system.

31. The accessor device of claim 20 wherein the intelligent access module uses at least one of a universal serial bus, ZigBee and wireless fidelity (WiFi) communications protocol.

32. The accessor device of claim 20 wherein the communications channel comprises a wireless transceiver.

33. The accessor device of claim 20 wherein the communications channel comprises a ZigBee wireless communications system.

34. The accessor device of claim 20 wherein the communications channel comprises a wireless fidelity communications system.

35. The accessor device of claim 20 wherein the communications channel comprises a ZigBee node coordinator stack.

36. The accessor device of claim 20 wherein the communications channel comprises a ZigBee node stack.

37. The accessor device of claim 20 wherein the interactive display component comprises at least one of a touch screen, a browser, a wireless fidelity transceiver, a flash storage and a universal serial bus driver.

38. The accessor device of claim 37 wherein the flash storage is used in the interactive display component to provide an instant-on capability.

39. The accessor device of claim 37 wherein the wireless transceiver enables the interactive display component to retrieve and display web pages and flash movies.

40. The accessor device of claim 37 wherein the touch screen includes an active area that enables the user to generate commands for controlling operation of the interactive display component or for interacting with web pages.

41. The accessor device of claim 37 wherein the universal serial bus driver enable command to flow between the interactive display component and the intelligent access module.

42. An intelligent access module for use in an accessor device that interfaces a user with an electronic device, the intelligent access module driver comprising:

an intelligent access driver for routing a plurality of message packets to a destination electronic device over a wired or a wireless connection;

a serial bus for transmitting the message packets over the wired connection;

a wireless node for transmitting the message packets over a wireless connection;

an input buffer for receiving message packets from a plurality of accessor devices and an interactive display;

an interaction processor for processing the input buffer to generate a new message packet;

an output buffer for receiving the new message packet from the interaction processor for transmission to the destination electronic device.

43. The intelligent access module of claim 42 wherein the message packets in the input buffers are converted into the new message packet based on the intent of the user.

44. The intelligent access module of claim 42 wherein the message packets comprise command packets and data packets.

45. The intelligent access module of claim 42 wherein the intelligent access driver routes the message packet over a wired connection whenever a universal serial bus connection exists with an attached device.

46. The intelligent access module of claim 42 wherein the intelligent access driver routes the message packet over a wireless connection if a universal serial bus connection does not exist with an attached device.

47. The intelligent access module of claim 42 wherein the message packets comprise at least one of intelligent access packets, human interface device packets, and internal representation of packets.

48. The intelligent access module of claim 42 wherein the intelligent access packets are used to communicate between intelligent access drivers in a plurality of access intelligent modules.

49. The intelligent access module of claim 42 wherein the human interface device packets are used to control a keyboard function and a mouse function in an interactive display.

50. The intelligent access module of claim 42 wherein the internal representation of packets is used in communications between internal components of the intelligent access device.

51. The intelligent access module of claim 42 wherein the message packet includes a bypass flag in the header of each message packet to indicate the effective source of the packet and the intended target level.

52. The intelligent access module of claim 42 wherein an addressing scheme used for routing of message packets comprises a plurality of bytes, with each byte corresponding to an accessor device at a specific level.

53. The intelligent access module of claim 42 wherein the message packets are transmitted as literal message packets or user intent message packets.

54. The intelligent access module of claim 42 wherein the received message packets are merged by the interaction processor before the new message packet is generated.