Ambient Intelligence Paradigm Research Articles

Agricultural traceability model based on IoT and Blockchain: Application in industrial hemp production

Facilities based on the Internet of Things and embedded systems along with the application of ambient intelligence paradigms offer new scenarios for optimization services in agronomic processes, specifically in the hemp industry. The traceability of products and activities demonstrates the scope of these technologies. However, the technologies themselves introduce integration-related problems that can affect the planned benefits. This article proposes a model that balances agricultural expert knowledge (user-centered design), value chain planning (through blockchain implementation), and digital technology (Internet of Things protocols) for providing tamper proof, transparent, and secure traceability in this agricultural sector. The proposed approach is backed by a proof-of-concept implementation in a realist scenario, using embedded devices and a permissioned blockchain. The model and its deployment fully integrate a set of services that other proposals only partially integrate. On one hand, the design creates a permissioned blockchain that contemplates the different actors in the value chain, and on the other hand, it develops services that use applications with human–machine interfaces. Finally, it deploys a network of embedded devices with Internet of Things protocols and control algorithms with automated access to the blockchain for traceability services. Combining digital systems with interoperable human tasks it has been possible to deploy a model that provides a new approach for the development of value-added services.

CognitOS Board: A Wall-Sized Board to Support Presentations in Intelligent Environments

The proliferation of Internet of Things devices and services and their integration in everyday environments led to the emergence of intelligent offices, classrooms, conference, and meeting rooms that adhere to the paradigm of Ambient Intelligence. Usually, the type of activities performed in such environments (i.e., presentations and lectures) can be enhanced by the use of large Interactive Boards that—among others—allow access to digital content, promote collaboration, enhance the process of exchanging ideas, and increase the engagement of the audience. Additionally, the board contents are expected to be plenty, in terms of quantity, and diverse, in terms of type (e.g., textual data, pictorial data, multimedia, figures, and charts), which unavoidably makes their manipulation over a large display tiring and cumbersome, especially when the interaction lasts for a considerable amount of time (e.g., during a class hour). Acknowledging both the shortcomings and potentials of Interactive Boards in intelligent conference rooms, meeting rooms, and classrooms, this work introduces a sophisticated framework named CognitOS Board, which takes advantage of (i) the intelligent facilities offered by the environment and (ii) the amenities offered by wall-to-wall displays, in order to enhance presentation-related activities. In this article, we describe the design process of CognitOS Board, elaborate on the available functionality, and discuss the results of a user-based evaluation study.

Ambient Intelligence in the Living Room.

The emergence of the Ambient Intelligence (AmI) paradigm and the proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and services unveiled new potentials for the domain of domestic living, where the line between “the computer” and the (intelligent) environment becomes altogether invisible. Particularly, the residents of a house can use the living room not only as a traditional social and individual space where many activities take place, but also as a smart ecosystem that (a) enhances leisure activities by providing a rich suite of entertainment applications, (b) implements a home control middleware, (c) acts as an intervention host that is able to display appropriate content when the users need help or support, (d) behaves as an intelligent agent that communicates with the users in a natural manner and assists them throughout their daily activities, (e) presents a notification hub that provides personalized alerts according to contextual information, and (f) becomes an intermediary communication center for the family. This paper (i) describes how the “Intelligent Living Room” realizes these newly emerged roles, (ii) presents the process that was followed in order to design the living room environment, (iii) introduces the hardware and software facilities that were developed in order to improve quality of life, and (iv) reports the findings of various evaluation experiments conducted to assess the overall User Experience (UX).

An evidence-based risk-oriented V-model methodology to develop ambient intelligent medical software

The Ambient Intelligence (AmI) paradigm has increasingly been adopted to build what we name Ambient Intelligent Medical Software (AmI-MS) to face the complexity of designing software-based systems for monitoring medical conditions and supporting physician in making decisions. When this kind of systems are directly related to the safety of people, they are subject to pass an approval process as Medical Devices to ascertain their quality regarding safety and effectiveness. Currently, building an AmI-MS follows a conventional approach which employs two processes: the first for developing the software and the second for identifying, assessing, and managing the related risks. This method hides its complexity within the interaction between the processes mentioned above, which is not standardised and left to manufacturer quality management. For AmI-MS, it is even worse due to the multitude of environmental conditions to be analysed from both a design and a risk perspective which leads to inappropriate, or insufficient evidence, and undiscovered, or not adequately controlled, risk scenarios. In this work, we propose a novel risk-driven, evidence-oriented V-model methodology which addresses the previous issues by defining a seamless and unified development process. The novelty of our approach consists of interleaving risk management with software development activities and employing assurance cases for driving and controlling quality concerns. A concrete application on a case study is presented to show the strengths and weaknesses of this approach.

From Ambient Sensing to IoT-based Context Computing: An Open Framework for End to End QoC Management.

Quality of Context (QoC) awareness is recognized as a key point for the success of context-aware computing. At the time where the combination of the Internet of Things, Cloud Computing, and Ambient Intelligence paradigms offer together new opportunities for managing richer context data, the next generation of Distributed Context Managers (DCM) is facing new challenges concerning QoC management. This paper presents our model-driven QoCIM framework. QoCIM is the acronym for Quality of Context Information Model. We show how it can help application developers to manage the whole QoC life-cycle by providing genericity, openness and uniformity. Its usages are illustrated, both at design time and at runtime, in the case of an urban pollution context- and QoC-aware scenario.

Integration of multisensor hybrid reasoners to support personal autonomy in the smart home.

The deployment of the Ambient Intelligence (AmI) paradigm requires designing and integrating user-centered smart environments to assist people in their daily life activities. This research paper details an integration and validation of multiple heterogeneous sensors with hybrid reasoners that support decision making in order to monitor personal and environmental data at a smart home in a private way. The results innovate on knowledge-based platforms, distributed sensors, connected objects, accessibility and authentication methods to promote independent living for elderly people. TALISMAN+, the AmI framework deployed, integrates four subsystems in the smart home: (i) a mobile biomedical telemonitoring platform to provide elderly patients with continuous disease management; (ii) an integration middleware that allows context capture from heterogeneous sensors to program environment's reaction; (iii) a vision system for intelligent monitoring of daily activities in the home; and (iv) an ontologies-based integrated reasoning platform to trigger local actions and manage private information in the smart home. The framework was integrated in two real running environments, the UPM Accessible Digital Home and MetalTIC house, and successfully validated by five experts in home care, elderly people and personal autonomy.

Generation of human computational models with knowledge engineering

The Ambient Intelligence (AmI) paradigm envisions systems whose central entity is the user. AmI integrates technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, implicit Human Computer Interaction, and Ubiquitous Services. Each capability of AmI systems is oriented towards assistance of humans at work, in the classroom, or even at home. In consequence, the AmI development process usually incorporates the final user since the first stages. However, having users available during all this long process is not always possible. Agent-based social simulations where the users׳ role is played by simulated entities can be used to make the AmI development process faster and more effective. In this scenario, the modelling of CMHBs (Computational Models of Human Behaviour) is a major challenge. To address this issue, this paper proposes a methodology whose main contributions are: (1) the use of domain experts׳ knowledge to create CMHBs; (2) a common methodological framework to develop CMHBs by combining information obtained from sensors׳ perceptions and experts׳ experiences; and, (3) open source tools to support this development paradigm. The paper also presents a full case of study in a hospital which illustrates: the number of recommendations made by the methodology; the techniques proposed (mainly the use of ontologies and temporal reasoning); and, the potential of the methodology to model the personnel in a hospital.

Intelligent Management Systems for Energy Efficiency in Buildings

In recent years, reduction of energy consumption in buildings has increasingly gained interest among researchers mainly due to practical reasons, such as economic advantages and long-term environmental sustainability. Many solutions have been proposed in the literature to address this important issue from complementary perspectives, which are often hard to capture in a comprehensive manner. This survey article aims at providing a structured and unifying treatment of the existing literature on intelligent energy management systems in buildings, with a distinct focus on available architectures and methodology supporting a vision transcending the well-established smart home vision, in favor of the novel Ambient Intelligence paradigm. Our exposition will cover the main architectural components of such systems, beginning with the basic sensory infrastructure, moving on to the data processing engine where energy-saving strategies may be enacted, to the user interaction interface subsystem, and finally to the actuation infrastructure necessary to transfer the planned modifications to the environment. For each component, we will analyze different solutions, and we will provide qualitative comparisons, also highlighting the impact that a single design choice can have on the rest of the system.

Semantic-Based Resource Discovery and Orchestration in Home and Building Automation: A Multi-Agent Approach

Home and building automation (HBA) trends toward the Ambient Intelligence paradigm, which aims to autonomously coordinate and control appliances and subsystems in a given environment. Nevertheless, HBA is based on an explicit user-home interaction and basically enables static and predetermined scenarios. This paper proposes a more flexible multi-agent approach, leveraging semantic-based resource discovery and orchestration for HBA applications. Backward-compatible enhancements to EIB/KNX domotic standard allow to support the semantic characterization of user profiles and device functionalities, thus enabling: 1) negotiation of the most suitable home services/functionalities according to implicit and explicit user needs and 2) device-driven interaction for adapting the environment to context evolution. A power-management problem in HBA is presented as a case study to better clarify the proposal and assess its effectiveness.

A service-oriented ZigBee gateway for Smart Environments

In the recent past Smart Environments, and in particular Smart Homes, have attracted the attention of many researchers and industrial vendors. In such environments, according to the Ambient Intelligence paradigm, heterogeneous devices may operate collectively using context information and intelligence that is usually hidden in the home networks. The networks of ZigBee devices play an important role in this scenario. However they require an easier interaction model with IP-based networks. This work presents an open source platform that seamlessly integrates ZigBee devices with applications running on smart phones and other connected devices available at home. It can be deployed on low-cost devices, such as Plug-PC, and it exploits the OSGi execution environment to discover devices and to notify the smart home of new available services.

Tag, You're It: Ranging and Finding via RFID Technology

This article has offered a brief overview of the most recent approaches to exploit RFID technology for ranging and locating tagged objects. Given the basic ideas reported in [1]-[3], we have focused on the most recent solutions addressing context-aware applications and the paradigm of ambient intelligence. These contexts are based on the ubiquitous presence of objects carrying some intelligence to be exchanged with the surrounding objects and environments in real time. For this reason, locating and discovering objects is a challenging aspect for the effective exploitation of RFID-based localization techniques.

A Survey on Ambient-Assisted Living Tools for Older Adults

In recent years, we have witnessed a rapid surge in assisted living technologies due to a rapidly aging society. The aging population, the increasing cost of formal health care, the caregiver burden, and the importance that the individuals place on living independently, all motivate development of innovative-assisted living technologies for safe and independent aging. In this survey, we will summarize the emergence of 'ambient-assisted living" (AAL) tools for older adults based on ambient intelligence paradigm. We will summarize the state-of-the-art AAL technologies, tools, and techniques, and we will look at current and future challenges.

Using ZigBee in Ambient Intelligence Learning Scenarios

The inclusion of Information and Communication Technologies, especially mobile devices, in learning environments has allowed both the emergence of new ways of learning and the adaptation of traditional teaching methods. In this sense, Ambient Intelligence (AmI) paradigm represents a promising approach that can be successfully applied to education. Pervasive computing, context and location awareness are AmI features that can allow students to receive customized information in a transparent way. Fortunately, there are several technologies that can help to gather such information. In this regard, Real-Time Locating Systems (RTLS) is a key technology that can improve context-awareness in AmI-based systems. This paper presents the use of a novel RTLS based on ZigBee technology that provides users’ positions in order to enhance context information in learning applications. This way, this system allows customizing the content offered to the users without their explicit interaction, as well as the granularity level provided by the system.

Handoff with energy awareness for future pervasive environments

Handoff management is one of the main research challenges for the realization of the envisioned mobile and wireless Internet. This is mainly due to the latency delay and energy consumption introduced during handoff, which are of major concern for real-time applications and battery-constrained mobile terminals. In this paper, we explore whether handoff management can benefit from the pervasiveness of future communication networks. The key idea is to follow the ambient intelligence paradigm for the purpose of context-aware handoff. More precisely, we focus on the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks (WSANs) pervasive technologies, and propose two schemes for handoff prediction at the network layer or at both link and network layers, respectively. Analytical models for their time response and energy consumption are firstly derived. Then simulation-based results show that both of our schemes can achieve 38% to 93% reduction in time response while the second scheme provides 88% energy savings, validating their superiority over the standard solutions.

Awareness marks: adaptive services through user interactions with augmented objects

The ambient intelligence paradigm involves one important challenge: to be adaptive to users and context through simple and natural interactions. To meet this goal, it is important to associate data with relevant everyday objects in the environment, including users themselves, and to enable interaction mechanisms between these objects. Following this premise, in this paper, we present a conceptual model to link contextual information with augmented elements acquired from user interactions in an implicit and transparent way. In this way, it is possible to personalize and enhance offered services in order to facilitate daily user activities. We call this contextual data marks, and these awareness marks make it possible to offer novel services adapted from past events that were captured as they happened. Moreover, we have developed and evaluated a set of prototypes using Near Field Communication technology, which follows the presented model.

How Intelligent Are Ambient Intelligence Systems?

Since the appearance of the Ambient Intelligence paradigm, as an evolution of the Ubiquitous Computing, a great deal of the research efforts in this ?eld have been mainly aimed at anticipating user actions and needs, out of a pre?xed set. However, Ambient Intelligence is not just constrained to user behaviour pattern matching, but to wisely supervise the whole environment, satisfying those unforeseen requirements or needs, by means of rational decisions. This work points at the lack of commonsense reasoning, as the main reason underlying the existance of these idiots savant systems, capable of accomplishing very speci?c and complex tasks, but incapable of making decisions out of the pre?xed behavioral patterns. This work advocates for the integration of the commonsense reasoning and understanding capabilities as the key elements in bridging the gap between idiot savant systems and real Ambient Intelligence systems.

Thematic issue on contribution of Artificial Intelligence to Ambient Intelligence

∗ Corresponding author. E-mail: anind@cs.cmu.edu. Since its inception, the vision of Ambient Intelligence (AmI) holds great promise in permeating everyday life thereby changing the nature of almost every human activity [6]. In the AmI paradigm, intelligent computation will be invisibly embedded into our everyday environments through a pervasive transparent infrastructure (consisting of a multitude of sensors, actuators, processors and networks), which is capable of recognizing, responding and adapting to people and activity in a seamless and unobtrusive way. AmI promises to advance the quality and trustworthiness of a huge number of applications in all domains of human activity, including, for example, health care, education, entertainment, administration, transportation, construction, and the use of energy resources [1]. Early research efforts concentrated on the conception of innovative scenarios using the AmI vision and the development of the system architectures, software and technology required to realize them. Early architectures adopted either a bottom-up approach, leading to the development of systems consisting of networked objects having digitally augmented functionality, or a middle-out approach, focusing on the design of middleware and the development of services on top. Nevertheless, during these early years, important problems, such as heterogeneity, discovery, transparency, context representation and adaptation were encountered, but the restricted scope of the systems required solutions specific to particular settings [3,8,12,13,19]. Hence, although Artificial Intelligence techniques were adopted, they were employed to solve specific problems within a well defined context [4,5,16]; some of these early architectures have found their way in commercially available components for smart homes or communicating information devices (mobile phones, personalized medical devices, media capture and processing devices, etc.). Nowadays, a new generation of AmI technology is gradually becoming available, as large scale complex architectures and systems are being developed to support an ever increasing number of domains of human activity. Such systems are often described as Ambient Ecologies, offering a rich set of components and interfaces, having a dynamic and adaptive structure and implying that people, as well as other goalpursuing actors (agents, avatars, robots, etc.) are regarded as being their integral part [9]. Complexity results from the large number of active nodes, services and interactions, the vast number of data and information, the multitude of locations and the increasing number of users and tasks that have to be supported. In addition, as people become familiar with the AmI paradigm, human-centred requirements become more important; these include adaptation, consistency, trustworthiness, security, efficiency, multimodal interaction and controlled transparency. In addition, an important body of research is dedicated to the design of biologically inspired AmI systems, capable of exhibiting cognitive abilities, such Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Smart Environments 1 (2009) 207–209 DOI 10.3233/AIS-2009-0029 IOS Press

Integration of Cross-layer Web-based Service-oriented Architecture and Collaborative Automation Technologies: The SOCRADES Approach

One consequence of the deep penetration of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) is the migration from conventional control and automation to intelligent environments built around the Collaborative Manufacturing Model (CMM), the Service-Oriented Architecture (SoA) and the Ambient Intelligence (AmI) paradigms. The result of the confluence of these three main scientific disciplines and the corresponding technologies is now presented under the view of a cross-layer infrastructure covering the control, automation and management, as it is being specified, developed and implemented by the SOCRADES consortium (see http://www.socrades.eu ). What happens if control, automation and production management functions are exposed as Web-based services, and this from the sensor/actuator throughout the shop-floor to the higher IT levels of an enterprise and focusing in three main domains, i.e., electronics/electromechanical assembly, car manufacturing and continuous process. This paper summarizes the major results addressed as possible answers to that question.

Special issue on Ambient Intelligence

Ambient Intelligence (AmI) refers to predominantly electronic solutions that allow environments to be sensitive, adaptive, and responsive to the presence of people (Aarts et al. 2002). This opens up a world of unprecedented experiences to people in their day to day surroundings. Building on the early ideas of ubiquitous computing by Marc Weiser (1991) who envisioned a digital world where electronic devices are embedded to form a fine grained distributed network, AmI aims to go further in integration by involving the entire environment and any physical object in the interaction with people, thus improving their well being, productivity, creativity, and leisure through enhanced user system interaction. Furthermore, beyond mere physical integration of electronics, this paradigm focuses on the creation of enhanced experiences, thereby having major cultural and business related implications (Aarts and Encarnacao 2006; Aarts and Marzano 2003). The notion ambience in Ambient Intelligence refers to the need for a large-scale embedding of technology in a way that it becomes unobtrusively integrated into every-day objects and environments. The notion intelligence reflects that the digital surroundings exhibit specific forms of social interaction, i.e., the environments should be able to recognize the people that live in it, personalize to individual preferences, adapt themselves to the users, learn from their behavior, and possibly act upon their behalf. This implies that embedding through miniaturization is the main systems design objective from a hardware point of view. From a software point of view we distinguish between the following major AmI functionalities, i.e., context awareness, ubiquitous access, and natural interaction. The user benefits of the AmI paradigm are aimed at improving the quality of peoples’ lives by creating the desired atmosphere and functionality via intelligent, personalized, interconnected systems and services. However simple this requirement may sound, its true realization is for the time being not within our reach. There are three global factors that enable the development of Ambient Intelligence, i.e., technology, global connectivity, and socio-economical aspects. Focusing on the technological factor, we use a well-known frame of reference provided by the developments in semiconductor industry, which is known as Moore’s law (Noyce 1977). This law states that the integration density of systems on silicon doubles every 18 months. This trend is going on for more than 30 years and provides a clear forecast for the development of semiconductor technology. Recently, some new angles have been opened which in conjunction with Moore’s law can be formulated as follows.

An Inter-cluster Communication based Energy Aware and Fault Tolerant Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

The ambient intelligence paradigm is built upon Ubiquitous Computing (UC), in which the computing devices are embedded in the environment with the purpose of enhancing the human experience at home, workplace/ office, learning, health care etc. The UC applications aim at providing services to the users anywhere, anytime in an unobtrusive, seemingly invisible way. Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have great potential for UC applications and are envisioned to revolutionize them. This paper presents a clustering routing protocol for event-driven, query-based and periodic WSNs. The protocol aims at optimizing energy dissipation in the network as well as providing network's fault tolerance and connectivity. Message propagation is accomplished by using short distance transmissions by employing nearest neighbor nodes between neighboring clusters. Moreover, the algorithm proposes using an energy efficient approach by alternating the nodes responsible for inter-cluster communication inside one cluster. The algorithm also aims at even energy dissipation among the nodes in the network by alternating the possible routes to the Sink. This helps to balance the load on sensor nodes and increases the network lifetime, while avoiding congested links at the same time. We discuss the implementation of our protocol, present its proof of correctness as well as the performance evaluation through an extensive set of simulation experiments.