On the Integration of Adaptive and Interactive Robotic Smart Spaces

© 2015 Mauro Dragone et al.. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License. (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)Enabling robots to seamlessly operate as part of smart spaces is an important and extended challenge for robotics R&D and a key enabler for a range of advanced robotic applications, such as AmbientAssisted Living (AAL) and home automation. The integration of these technologies is currently being pursued from two largely distinct view-points: On the one hand, people-centred initiatives focus on improving the user’s acceptance by tackling human-robot interaction (HRI) issues, often adopting a social robotic approach, and by giving to the designer and - in a limited degree – to the final user(s), control on personalization and product customisation features. On the other hand, technologically-driven initiatives are building impersonal but intelligent systems that are able to pro-actively and autonomously adapt their operations to fit changing requirements and evolving users’ needs,but which largely ignore and do not leverage human-robot interaction and may thus lead to poor user experience and user acceptance. In order to inform the development of a new generation of smart robotic spaces, this paper analyses and compares different research strands with a view to proposing possible integrated solutions with both advanced HRI and online adaptation capabilities.Peer reviewe

On the Design of Ambient Intelligent Systems in the Context of Assistive Technologies

The design of Ambient Intelligent Systems (AISs) is discussed in the context of assistive technologies. The main issues include ubiquitous communications, context awareness, natural interactions and heterogeneity, which are analyzed using some examples. A layered architecture is proposed for heterogeneous sub-systems integration with three levels of interactions that may be used as a framework to design assistive AISs.Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología TIC2001-1868-C0

Federated Embedded Systems – a review of the literature in related fields

This report is concerned with the vision of smart interconnected objects, a vision that has attracted much attention lately. In this paper, embedded, interconnected, open, and heterogeneous control systems are in focus, formally referred to as Federated Embedded Systems. To place FES into a context, a review of some related research directions is presented. This review includes such concepts as systems of systems, cyber-physical systems, ubiquitous computing, internet of things, and multi-agent systems. Interestingly, the reviewed fields seem to overlap with each other in an increasing number of ways

Кибербезопасность в образовательных сетях

The paper discusses the possible impact of digital space on a human, as well as human-related directions in cyber-security analysis in the education: levels of cyber-security, social engineering role in cyber-security of education, “cognitive vaccination”. “A Human” is considered in general meaning, mainly as a learner. The analysis is provided on the basis of experience of hybrid war in Ukraine that have demonstrated the change of the target of military operations from military personnel and critical infrastructure to a human in general. Young people are the vulnerable group that can be the main goal of cognitive operations in long-term perspective, and they are the weakest link of the System.У статті обговорюється можливий вплив цифрового простору на людину, а також пов'язані з людиною напрямки кібербезпеки в освіті: рівні кібербезпеки, роль соціального інжинірингу в кібербезпеці освіти, «когнітивна вакцинація». «Людина» розглядається в загальному значенні, головним чином як та, що навчається. Аналіз надається на основі досвіду гібридної війни в Україні, яка продемонструвала зміну цілей військових операцій з військовослужбовців та критичної інфраструктури на людину загалом. Молодь - це вразлива група, яка може бути основною метою таких операцій в довгостроковій перспективі, і вони є найслабшою ланкою системи.В документе обсуждается возможное влияние цифрового пространства на человека, а также связанные с ним направления в анализе кибербезопасности в образовании: уровни кибербезопасности, роль социальной инженерии в кибербезопасности образования, «когнитивная вакцинация». «Человек» рассматривается в общем смысле, в основном как ученик. Анализ представлен на основе опыта гибридной войны в Украине, которая продемонстрировала изменение цели военных действий с военного персонала и критической инфраструктуры на человека в целом. Молодые люди являются уязвимой группой, которая может быть главной целью когнитивных операций в долгосрочной перспективе, и они являются самым слабым звеном Систем

Proceedings of the 2012 Workshop on Ambient Intelligence Infrastructures (WAmIi)

This is a technical report including the papers presented at the Workshop on Ambient Intelligence Infrastructures (WAmIi) that took place in conjunction with the International Joint Conference on Ambient Intelligence (AmI) in Pisa, Italy on November 13, 2012. The motivation for organizing the workshop was the wish to learn from past experience on Ambient Intelligence systems, and in particular, on the lessons learned on the system architecture of such systems. A significant number of European projects and other research have been performed, often with the goal of developing AmI technology to showcase AmI scenarios. We believe that for AmI to become further successfully accepted the system architecture is essential

Combining heterogeneous inputs for the development of adaptive and multimodal interaction systems

In this paper we present a novel framework for the integration of visual sensor networks and speech-based interfaces. Our proposal follows the standard reference architecture in fusion systems (JDL), and combines different techniques related to Artificial Intelligence, Natural Language Processing and User Modeling to provide an enhanced interaction with their users. Firstly, the framework integrates a Cooperative Surveillance Multi-Agent System (CS-MAS), which includes several types of autonomous agents working in a coalition to track and make inferences on the positions of the targets. Secondly, enhanced conversational agents facilitate human-computer interaction by means of speech interaction. Thirdly, a statistical methodology allows modeling the user conversational behavior, which is learned from an initial corpus and improved with the knowledge acquired from the successive interactions. A technique is proposed to facilitate the multimodal fusion of these information sources and consider the result for the decision of the next system action.This work was supported in part by Projects MEyC TEC2012-37832-C02-01, CICYT TEC2011-28626-C02-02, CAM CONTEXTS S2009/TIC-1485Publicad

Proceedings of the 2012 Workshop on Ambient Intelligence Infrastructures (WAmIi)

This is a technical report including the papers presented at the Workshop on Ambient Intelligence Infrastructures (WAmIi) that took place in conjunction with the International Joint Conference on Ambient Intelligence (AmI) in Pisa, Italy on November 13, 2012. The motivation for organizing the workshop was the wish to learn from past experience on Ambient Intelligence systems, and in particular, on the lessons learned on the system architecture of such systems. A significant number of European projects and other research have been performed, often with the goal of developing AmI technology to showcase AmI scenarios. We believe that for AmI to become further successfully accepted the system architecture is essential

E-Inclusion: From Assistive Technology to Smart Environments

With main reference to research activities carried out in Europe, the paper describes the impact of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in supporting the integration of people in the society. It starts from its immediate use in assistive technology for granting communication and access to information to people with limitations of activities (e.g., blind, and deaf people). Then it describes the change of attitudes due to the technical developments in the field and the approach of international organizations (UN and WHO), leading to the proposal of Design for All (DfA) and to the concept that technology must be used to guarantee the well-being of all people. This is made possible by the developments of technology leading to the emergence of intelligent environments, where technology can be interconnected to support all people in any activity. Some prototypes developed to show the present feasibility of interesting support applications are shortly described, pointing out the possibility of improvement due to Artificial Intelligence.Mit Hauptbezug auf die in Europa durchgeführten Forschungsaktivitäten beschreibt dieses Kapitel die Auswirkungen der Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologie (IKT) bei der Unterstützung der Integration von Menschen in die Gesellschaft. Er beginnt mit dem unmittelbaren Einsatz der IKT als Hilfsmittel, um Menschen mit eingeschränkten Aktivitäten (z. B. Blinde und Gehörlose) Kommunikation und Zugang zu Informationen zu ermöglichen. Anschließend wird der Wandel der Einstellungen beschrieben, der durch die technischen Entwicklungen in diesem Bereich und den Ansatz internationaler Organisationen (UN und WHO) ausgelöst wurde und zum Vorschlag des Design for All (DfA) und zum Konzept führte, dass die Technologie genutzt werden muss, um das Wohlbefinden aller Menschen zu gewährleisten. Ermöglicht wird dies durch die technologischen Entwicklungen, die zur Entstehung intelligenter Umgebungen führen, in denen Technologien miteinander verbunden werden können, um alle Menschen bei jeder Tätigkeit zu unterstützen. Einige Prototypen, die entwickelt wurden, um die Machbarkeit interessanter Unterstützungsanwendungen zu demonstrieren, werden kurz beschrieben, wobei auf die Möglichkeit von Verbesserungen durch künstliche Intelligenz hingewiesen wird

Assistive robotics: research challenges and ethics education initiatives

Assistive robotics is a fast growing field aimed at helping healthcarers in hospitals, rehabilitation centers and nursery homes, as well as empowering people with reduced mobility at home, so that they can autonomously fulfill their daily living activities. The need to function in dynamic human-centered environments poses new research challenges: robotic assistants need to have friendly interfaces, be highly adaptable and customizable, very compliant and intrinsically safe to people, as well as able to handle deformable materials. Besides technical challenges, assistive robotics raises also ethical defies, which have led to the emergence of a new discipline: Roboethics. Several institutions are developing regulations and standards, and many ethics education initiatives include contents on human-robot interaction and human dignity in assistive situations. In this paper, the state of the art in assistive robotics is briefly reviewed, and educational materials from a university course on Ethics in Social Robotics and AI focusing on the assistive context are presented.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

05181 Abstracts Collection -- Mobile Computing and Ambient Intelligence: The Challenge of Multimedia

From 01.05.05 to 04.05.05, the Dagstuhl Seminar 05181 ``Mobile Computing and Ambient Intelligence: The Challenge of Multimedia\u27\u27was held in the International Conference and Research Center (IBFI), Schloss Dagstuhl. During the seminar, several participants presented their current research, and ongoing work and open problems were discussed. Abstracts of the presentations given during the seminar as well as abstracts of seminar results and ideas are put together in this paper. The first section describes the seminar topics and goals in general. Links to extended abstracts or full papers are provided, if available