SoapBox: A Platform for Ubiquitous Computing Research and Applications

Designing, implementing and evaluating prototypes is a normal way of doing technical research. In recent years we have seen lots of research prototypes specifically designed for context awareness, future user interfaces and intelligent environment research. The problem with this type of specialised prototypes is that their lifetime is rather short and the valuable work done for them is not easily reusable. Our approach has been different as we have deliberately aimed towards a multipurpose platform that would be suitable for various ubiquitous computing related research themes. In this article we present the design and implementation of the platform that is named as SoapBox (Sensing, Operating and Activating Peripheral Box). Its main features are wired and wireless communications, in-built sensors, small size and low power consumption. We also introduce some results of research projects that have already used the platform successfully. Finally we conclude the paper with application scenarios for further work.