Digital Ouija Board for Aircraft Carrier Operations

Project Lead: Kojo Acquah

Our system illustrates first steps toward a digital Ouija Board and, in doing so, suggests additional functionality available beyond traditional Ouija Boards. The system is designed to provide a familiar interface, using a table-sized digital rendering of an aircraft carrier deck. The system has a basic understanding of deck operations and can aid Deck Handlers by carrying out common tasks. It understands the location of various regions on deck (such as the "the street" or "fantail") and can distinguish different types of aircraft. It has a basic understanding of space and can determine whether a location has room for the aircraft it has been told to move. It can ensure that there is a clear path for aircraft movement, generating a plausible path to the desired destination, then clearing away other aircraft if need be.

The system supports multimodal interaction, i.e., it understands a range of speech and hand gestures from a Deck Handler and responds with its own speech, gestures and graphics. This style of interaction - which we call symmetric multimodal interaction - creates a conversation of sorts between a Deck Handler and the Ouija Board.

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Please direct questions to Kojo Acquah, or MUG.

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