OntoCarer: an ontological framework for assistive agents for the disabled

The OntoCarer Framework is a research programme of the Centre for Intelligent Systems Research of London Metropolitan University which aims at utilizing contemporary Web and Mobile Internet technologies for assisting disabled, elderly and impaired people. In this framework software agents will act on behalf of both the assisted and the assisting people. Its conceptual foundation is based on the World Health Organisation classification of Functioning, Disability and Health. The software agents will be located on their mobile telephones, and coordinated through service organisation agent. The representations used for the agent profiles will be Semantic Web ones built using RDF/OWL. The agent planning in the framework is organized on two-levels, combining an offline deductive planner, based on the BDI theory of rational behaviour and semantic pattern matching, and a continuous online planning, based on an action ontology and event-driven programming. This paper presents the pilot implementation of the framework which utilizes only standard communications infrastructure, public service hosting, open source software and inexpensive mobile devices