Towards wearable cognitive assistance

TLDR

The study presents an architecture and prototype of a Google Glass–based assistive system for users with cognitive decline. The system uses a multi‑tiered architecture that captures first‑person images and sensor data on Glass, performs remote processing for real‑time scene interpretation, and gracefully degrades when network tiers are unavailable. It achieves tight end‑to‑end latency for compute‑intensive tasks while mitigating battery and processing limitations of wearable devices.

Abstract

We describe the architecture and prototype implementation of an assistive system based on Google Glass devices for users in cognitive decline. It combines the first-person image capture and sensing capabilities of Glass with remote processing to perform real-time scene interpretation. The system architecture is multi-tiered. It offers tight end-to-end latency bounds on compute-intensive operations, while addressing concerns such as limited battery capacity and limited processing capability of wearable devices. The system gracefully degrades services in the face of network failures and unavailability of distant architectural tiers.