Hybrid mixed-reality (XR) internet-of-things (IoT) research, here called XRI, aims at a strong integration between physical and virtual objects, environments, and agents wherein IoT-enabled edge devices are deployed for sensing, context understanding, networked communication and control of device actuators. Likewise, as augmented reality systems provide an immersive overlay on the environments, and virtual reality provides fully immersive environments, the merger of these domains leads to immersive smart spaces that are hyper-connected, adaptive and dynamic components that anchor the metaverse to real-world constructs. Enabling the human-in-the-loop to remain engaged and connected across these virtual-physical hybrid environments requires advances in user interaction that are multi-dimensional. This work investigates the potential to transition the user interface to the human body as an extended-reality avatar with hybrid extended-body interfaces that can interact both with the physical and virtual sides of the metaverse. It contributes: i) an overview of metaverses, XRI, and avatarization concepts, ii) a taxonomy landscape for extended XRI body interfaces, iii) an architecture and potential interactions for XRI body designs, iv) a prototype XRI body implementation based on the architecture, v) a design-science evaluation, toward enabling future design research directions.

翻译：混合现实（XR）与物联网（IoT）的交叉研究（本文称为XRI）旨在实现物理与虚拟对象、环境及智能体之间的强集成，其中基于物联网的边缘设备被部署用于感知、环境理解、网络通信及设备执行器控制。与此同时，增强现实系统为环境提供沉浸式叠加，虚拟现实则构建完全沉浸式环境，这两个领域的融合催生了沉浸式智能空间——这些超连接、自适应且动态的组件将元宇宙锚固于现实世界架构。实现人在环中持续参与并连接这些虚实混合环境，需要推进多维度的用户交互技术。本研究探索将用户界面迁移至人体作为扩展现实化身的可能性，构建可同时与元宇宙物理侧和虚拟侧交互的混合扩展身体接口。本文贡献包括：i）元宇宙、XRI及化身概念综述，ii）扩展XRI身体接口的分类体系，iii）XRI身体架构及潜在交互设计，iv）基于该架构的XRI身体原型实现，v）面向未来设计研究方向的设计科学评估。