SBIR Phase I: Easy-to-Use Software for Automation Integration

小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力可以极大地改变可使用自动化及其有据可查的好处的人群。缺乏针对真正的非技术用户的工具，这些用户仍然渴望成为实用的(而不是教育性质的)，这对许多人来说是一个障碍。这项提议中采用的方法可以减少或消除这一障碍，并将简单的移动机器带入更多的环境中。对于业余爱好者来说，这意味着提高了自己设计机器和简单设备的逻辑行为的能力，这些设备已经在这个群体中被创造出来。对于中小型企业，这可能意味着提高生产率、质量和收入，特别是对于小批量流程。在未来，这项技术可以应用于家庭自动化，对社会来说，所有用户都能控制他们连接的设备的行为是至关重要的，特别是在这样一个个人空间，社会和文化考虑需要个人定制，以设计如何在家庭周围移动“智能”东西。这个小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目有两个主要目标。首先，将测试初始概念验证原型的计算可伸缩性。实现这一目标的技术障碍包括开发可伸缩的代码体系结构以及支持更多所谓的感测和动作原语，这将在提案中进行解释。其次，将确定未经培训的用户从上下文用例转移到特定逻辑设计的能力。实现这一目标的技术障碍在人为因素领域，相对复杂的流程必须提炼成必要的步骤，未经培训的用户可以在特定环境中与熟悉的流程相关。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project can dramatically transform the population of people to whom automation, and its well-documented benefits, is available. The lack of tools targeted at truly nontechnical users that still have the aspiration to be practically useful (rather than educational in nature) is a barrier to many. The approach taken in this proposal could reduce or remove this barrier and bring simple, moving machines into many more environments. For hobbyists, this means increased ability to self-design the logical behavior of the machines and simple devices already being created in this group. For small to medium sized businesses, this may mean increased productivity, quality, and revenue, particularly for small-batch processes. Further into the future, this technology can be applied to home automation where it is critical for society that all users have control over the behavior of their connected devices, particularly in such a personal space where social and cultural considerations require individual customization to design how the "smart" things around the home move.This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project has two main objectives. First, the computational scalability of an initial, proof-of concept prototype will be tested. Technical hurdles for this objective include the development of a scalable code architecture and support for a larger number of so-called sensing and action primitives, which will be explained in the proposal. Second, the ability of an untrained user to move from a contextualized use-case to specific logic design will be determined. Technical hurdles for this objective are in the domain of human factors, where a relatively complex process must be distilled to essential steps that an untrained user can relate to a familiar process in a particular environment.