Applied Mechanics and Materials Online: 2012-11-29 ISSN: 1662-7482, Vol. 235, pp 389-393 doi:10.4028/www.scientific.net/amm.235.389 2012 Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland A Digital Menu System Based on the Cloud client Technology Lin Dong 1, a, Weibo Li 1, b, Ping He 2,c,Jia Liu 1,d 1 School of Computer Science and Engineering, Wuhan Institute of Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430073, China 2 Wuhan Jihua Computer System CO., LTD, Wuhan, Hubei 430073, China a donglin986838@163.com, b liweibo9@yahoo.com (Corresponding author), c 827596@qq.com, d 394993331@qq.com Keywords: cloud client; wireless touch screen; VDP; touch panel Abstract: Realization of informatization management in the catering industry may be costly. In order to address this problem, this paper put forward a Digital Menu system, which integrated with of the concept of cloud computing and touch screen on the wireless devices. All of the departments terminals connected with the server will equip with the Digital Menu System software through the wireless network, and together they reform a Digital Menu System. Successfully adopting such system in the catering industry could potentially reduce the cost of personnel and management. The system employed the follow technologies: Virtual Desktop Protocol (VDP), Wireless Network, Touch panel, Cloud Client etc. It helps informatization process of the catering industry and provides a new manner to order dishes. Using the cloud client technology provides a new method to order dishes for the catering industry. Introduction With the development of computer technologies, more and more methods to order dishes are used in the catering industry. Zeqiu Yan and et al [1] designed a self-service ordering dishes terminal which uses an 8-inches LCD touch screen as human-machine interface that provides a digital menu with touch input. They put forward a new data storage method that separates the software of application layer and the software of physical layer to overcome the space limitation of embedded system on large-scale data storage and update. Baoliang Yang and Qingge Wang [2] applied touch technology and the concept of embedded system software into the catering industry and developed a system device of wireless touch ordering dishes which is low cost with high practicability. Sunsun Zong et al [3] designed a system of wireless ordering dishes based on ARM and the system includes the embedded technology, the touch screen technology, the wireless communication technology etc. That realized a touch ordering dishes system on the $3C2410 s platform which is based on ARM9T. Zhiwen Hu et al [4] designed and realized a new type of customer self-service ordering dishes terminal using the touch screen as an interactive interface without waitress and it is completely determined by the customers themselves to order dishes and the device terminal accesses the server s site to complete recipes query, including the operation of ordering dishes, checkout, multimedia entertainment etc. Yuanyi Guo and et al [5] designed a embedded wireless ordering system. It not only has the features of PAD, but also has the advantages of low-cost single-chip prices. Xuefeng Li et al [6] used the embedded system based on Commtext-M3 and Wi-Fi s module of SPI interface to design another ordering dishes system. It can expand and have many modules of receiving and sending the data of Wi-Fi (AP module). These catering software systems use many kinds of technologies, but systems which use the technology of cloud client in the catering industry is very few. The paper applies the technology of cloud client computing and combines it with other technologies to design a new digital menu system. Customers is able to order dishes by themselves with better dining atmosphere, and it is low-cost and easy to use. All rights reserved. No part of contents of this paper may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of Trans Tech Publications, www.ttp.net. (ID: 130.203.136.75, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, USA-12/05/16,06:46:06)
390 Advances in Computing, Control and Industrial Engineering The cloud client and the touch screen In order to design the touch wireless device, the system uses two kinds of devices. Cloud client is actually a mini-network computer. It has two running-modes: MinPC model and the model of shared computing. After entering one model, client can still switch between two models from the icon on the OS desktop. In the model of MinPC, the cloud client is a thin client and you can use the cloud client like a personal computer. It can complete most of tasks which a personal computer can do and its working principle is same as a personal computer. In the model of shared computing, the cloud client is used as a terminal of a remote server. It connects with the server by VDP. In this process, the server has to install the VDP software as well which will automatically run the process of broadcast when the server is started. At the same time, it also starts another two services: Bayplus VDP Broadcast and VDP. Bayplus VDP Broadcast sends broadcasts to find the VDP client. VDP service (it allows multiple users to share the same computer) is mainly used to build a shared network environment by sharing hardware and software resources of the server. The VDP protocol is used to communicate with the cloud server. The other one is Resistive Touch Screen [7]. It uses pressure sensors. The main part of the resistive touch screen is a resistive films screen with a display surface, which is a multi-layer composite film. It uses glass or hard plastic plate as the base layer, coating with a layer of transparent metal oxide (transparent conductive layer resistance), and then it is covered with a plastic layer. The outside surface of plastic layer is hardening and smoothly to prevent friction. Its inner surface is coated. There are many of the small (less than 1/1000 inch) transparent separation nodes to separate the two surfaces between them. When the fingers touch the screen, there creates a touch points between the two conductive layers at the location and resistivity changes. At the same time it generates a signal in the direction of X and Y, and then sends the signal to the touch screen controller. The controller detects the contact by calculating the location of (X, Y). At last, it simulates the mouse movement. This is the basic principle of resistive touch screen technology. All resistive touch screens use principle of divider to produce the voltage in the directions of X and Y. The touch-wireless equipment In order to simplify the terminal hardware, the system integrates the cloud clients with the touching screen into a new device.. Its internal schematic shows in Fig. 1. Firstly Open the shell of the resistive touching screen and remove the shell of the cloud client. Second put the circuit board of the cloud client on the inside of the resistive touching screen. At last, link the lines of port between them and cover with shell of the screen. That is how the touching wireless equipment integrates. Fig. 1: The internal structure of touch-wireless equipment The touching wireless device works as following: it uses as a terminal and connects with servers through the TCP / IP protocol and standard architecture of LAN. It communicates with server by Virtual Desktop Protocol. When starting with the shared computing model, many terminals login
Applied Mechanics and Materials Vol. 235 391 the server through different usernames and passwords and the server will open a separate session for every terminal. They have their own separated memory spaces. And the picture on the server s screen shows on the each terminal s screen. They can run independently without interference with each other. When one custom presses on the client screen, the touch is detected by the component of touching detection and it sends the signal to the controller. The controller converts it to back the coordinate and sends the coordinate to the server by the wireless LAN. The software on the server responds according to the coordinate. And it sends the result to the terminal. At the end, the screen of terminal shows the picture which is running on the server. Realization of the Digital Menu System It divides into two parts. One is the design of software and the other one is the foundation of hardware s environment. The Design of Software The software of system mainly divides into two large modules: the client and the background of management. The two modules are all completed with the developing tool of Builder C++. The client has four sub-modules: About us, food culture, entertainment and ordering dishes. About us introduces the historical overview of the shop, business s philosophy and features. The food culture describes the notes in the diet and the introduction of the eight major cuisines in China. The entertainment contains games, vides and songs. The sub-module of ordering dishes is the most important part in the client device. After entering the serial number of dining table and the number of customers, it is an interface which provides an introduction and pictures of the food. There are all the recipes and customers can be free to choose food on it. After the customer has completed the order, he only needs to click the submit button to submit. The backend also divides into four sub-modules: the desk of service, kitchen, the desk of information and the desk of checkout. Every sub-module has its own functions. For example, the desk of checkout is responsible for checkout. There are three kinds of users according to different functions: Administrator, Cashier and Waiter. The Waiter can enter the interfaces of kitchen and the desk of service. The Cashier only can enter the interface of the desk of checkout. Administrator can enter all interfaces. All the modules work together to complete the process from ordering dishes to checkout which is shown in Fig. 2. Fig. 2: Business processes Hardware s Environment There are five hardware components in the system: desk of service, kitchen, the desk of information, the desk of checkout and the terminal of ordering dishes system. The wireless device in the catering industry is a terminal, and then the configuration of hardware is following: the terminal of ordering dishes system, kitchen and the desk of service use the client device. The desk of information and the desk of checkout can be personal computers as terminals and they also can be equipped with several printers. The Server is a personal computer of high quality. Link these devices by the way of wireless LAN in Fig. 3: (a). The hardware s environment
392 Advances in Computing, Control and Industrial Engineering is created. After building the network, install the OS of Windows Server 2003 and the software of server in the host of server. Install the software of the Digital Menu System and create users which are used to login to the server from terminals. The system is created. The customer only enters the user s name and password to login to the server, and will see the interface of system. (a) Fig. 3: (a) Network structure; (b) (b) The Interface of System The applied effect of the system We introduce the above-designed digital menu system for catering industry, and it brings the following effects: (1) Self-menu can be easily operated. It has a visualized, graphed and humanistic touched-operator interface. When customers click the button on the self-menu, there is an interface where he can enter the serial number of dining table and the number of customers. After entering these, the interface of ordering dishes appears as in Figure 3: (b). It can improve efficiency of ordering dishes and reduce the number of waiters. It also saving the waiting time of service to ordering dishes, especially in the rush hours of having meals. (2) It is very convenient to manage. All software is installed in the host of server. When the system updates, you can only do it in the server and do not need to do in all terminals. (3) Improving the atmosphere of dining and enhancing the taste of this hotel. There are three modules except the module of ordering dishes. They are the food culture, about us and entertainment. The customer can choose food quickly through them. (4) Support the technology of real-time communications. It can make various operations to work together quickly. It reduces the labor intensity and increase the work efficiency. Conclusion In the context, we introduce the present research situation of the software in domestic catering industry and the cloud client technology firstly, and we design a terminal for the touched wireless digital menu system combined with the cloud client technology and Multi-touch technology. We successfully build a digital menu system with many client terminals of the wireless menu system which can run synchronously in the server with the VPD protocol. After testing, the system can not only be running steadily and operated easily, but also be maintained handily. Due to high volume of photos and Flash contents in the system, when the menu is refreshed at high-frequency, slightly delay is observed. Hence, there is a need for future optimization on traffic volume.
Applied Mechanics and Materials Vol. 235 393 References [1] Zeqiu Yan, Xiaodong Liao and Qin Tu, The design of ordering dishes terminal based on the touching screen, The Modern technology of electronic. No.5 (2010) 125-127. [2] Baoliang Yang and Qingge Wan, Design a system of touching wireless ordering dishes terminal, The Newspaper of Institute Of Unity and Coherence In Writing Of Chongqing. Vol.31, No. 1 (2012) 76-82. [3] SunSun Zong and Weidong Hao, The wireless system of ordering dishes, The Application of Computer s system. Vol.20, No.6 (2011) 221-224. [4] Zhiwen Hu and Yi Zhang, The design of self-menu terminal based on the embedded systems of Linux, The Modern technology of electronic.vol.34, No.4 (2011) 14-16. [5] Yuanyi Guo, Qinghua Liang and Shuang Guo, The study of system s ordering dishes in the catering industry based on wireless network, The newspaper of Liaoning University of Technology. Vol.29, No.1 (2009) 21-23. [6] XueFeng Li and Yibing Zhou, Applied Systems Analysis Based on the technology of Wi-Fi, The Chinese information of technology. No.10 (2011) 103-104. [7] Information on http://baike.baidu.com/view/650013.htm#1.
Advances in Computing, Control and Industrial Engineering 10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMM.235 A Digital Menu System Based on the Cloud Client Technology 10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMM.235.389