New applications of Ambient Intelligence

Ambient Intelligence emerged more than two decades ago, with the exciting promise of technologically empowered environments that would be everywhere, cater to all our needs, be constantly available, know who we are and what we like, and allow us to make explicit requests using natural means instead of the traditional mouse and keyboard. At a time in which this technological unravelling was expected to have already happened, we still use the mouse and the keyboard. In this paper we make a brief analysis of why is this evolution taking more than initially expected. We then move on to analyse several di erent projects that are innovative, in the sense that they encompass elds of application that go beyond the initially envisioned, and show the diverse areas that AmI systems may potentially come to change.This work is part-funded by ERDF - European Regional Development Fund through the COMPETE Programme (operational programme for competitiveness) and by National Funds through the FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology) within project FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-028980 (PTDC/EEI-SII/1386/2012). This work is partfunded by National Funds through the FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology) within projects PEst-OE/EEI/UI0752/2011

Designing interactive ambient multimedia applications: requirements and implementation challenges

Ambient intelligence opens new possibilities for interactive multimedia, leading towards applications where the selection, generation and playback of multimedia content can be directed and influenced by multiple users in an ambient sensor network. In this paper, we derive the basic requirements for a flexible infrastructure that can support the integration of multimedia and ambient intelligence, and enable rapid tailoring of interactive multimedia applications. We describe our implementation of the proposed infrastructure, and demonstrate its functionality through several prototype application

Designing interactive ambient multimedia applications: requirements and implementation challenges

Ambient intelligence opens new possibilities for interactive multimedia, leading towards applications where the selection, generation and playback of multimedia content can be directed and influenced by multiple users in an ambient sensor network. In this paper, we derive the basic requirements for a flexible infrastructure that can support the integration of multimedia and ambient intelligence, and enable rapid tailoring of interactive multimedia applications. We describe our implementation of the proposed infrastructure, and demonstrate its functionality through several prototype application

Is Ambient Intelligence a truly Human-Centric Paradigm in Industry? Current Research and Application Scenario

The use of pervasive networked devices is nowadays a reality in the service sector. It impacts almost all aspects of our daily lives, although most times we are not aware of its influence. This is a fundamental characteristic of the concept of Ambient Intelligence (AmI). Ambient Intelligence aims to change the form of human-computer interaction, focusing on the user needs so they can interact in a more seamless way, with emphasis on greater user-friendliness. The idea of recognizing people and their context situation is not new and has been successfully applied with limitations, for instance, in the health and military sectors. However its appearance in the manufacturing industry has been elusive. Could the concept of AmI turn the current shop floor into a truly human centric environment enabling comprehensive reaction to human presence and action? In this article an AmI scenario is presented and detailed with applications in human’s integrity and safety.Ambient Intelligence, networks, human-computer interaction

Analysis and design of a subtitling system for ambient intelligence environments

The development of ubiquitous applications for ambient intelligence environments needs to also take into account some usability and accessibility issues in order to ensure a proper user experience and to overcome the existing content access barriers. A proper access to video subtitles, for instance, is not always available due to the technical limitations of traditional video packaging, transmission and presentation. New Web standards enable more featured applications with better multi-platform definition, so they are suitable for building ubiquitous applications for ambient intelligence environments. This work presents a video subtitling system that enables the customization and adaptation of subtitles. The benefits of Web applications compared with device-specific native applications for building the solution as well as its current platform support are analyzed. Finally, three different application use cases are presented

Advances in technologies and techniques for ambient intelligence

Human activity attracting a lot of research activity in several fields including the use of wireless sensors, positioning technologies and techniques, embedded computing, remote sensing and energy management among others. There are a number of applications where the results of those investigations can be applied, including ambient intelligence to support human activity, particularly the elderly and disabled people. Ambient intelligence is a new paradigm for the information and communications technologies where the electronic/digital environment takes care of the people presence and their needs, becoming an active, adaptive and responsive environment

Privacy-by-design rules in face recognition system

In this paper, we develop a face recognition system based on softcomputing techniques, which complies with privacy-by-design rules and defines a set of principles that are context-aware applications (including biometric sensors) and should contain to conform to European and US law. This paper deals with the necessity to consider legal issues concerning privacy or human rights in the development of biometric identification in ambient intelligence systems. Clearly, context-based services and ambient intelligence (and the most promising research area in Europe, namely ambient assisted living, ALL) call for a major research effort on new identification procedures.This work was supported in part by Projects CICYT TIN 2011-28620-C02-01, CICYT TEC2011-28626-C02-02, CAM CONTEXTS (S2009/TIC-1485) and DPS2008-07029-C02-02.Publicad

Regulatory Model for AAL

Proceedings of: 6th International Conference on Soft Computing Models in Industrial and Environmental Applications (SOCO 2011). Salamanca, April 6-8, 2011Abstract: In this work, authors define a set of principles that should be contained in context-aware applications (including biometric sensors) to accomplish the legal aspect in Europe and USA. Paper presents the necessity to consider legal aspect, related with pri-vacy or human rights, into the development of the incipient context based services. Clearly, context based services and Ambient Intelligence (and the most promising work area in Europe that is Ambient Assisted Living, ALL) needs a great effort in research new identification procedures.Publicad

Wireless distributed intelligence in personal applications

Tietokoneet ovat historian kuluessa kehittyneet keskustietokoneista hajautettujen, langattomasti toimivien järjestelmien suuntaan. Elektroniikalla toteutetut automaattiset toiminnot ympärillämme lisääntyvät kiihtyvällä vauhdilla. Tällaiset sovellukset lisääntyvät tulevaisuudessa, mutta siihen soveltuva tekniikka on vielä kehityksen alla ja vaadittavia ominaisuuksia ei aina löydy. Nykyiset lyhyen kantaman langattoman tekniikan standardit ovat tarkoitettu lähinnä teollisuuden ja multimedian käyttöön, siksi ne ovat vain osittain soveltuvia uudenlaisiin ympäristöälykkäisiin käyttötarkoituksiin. Ympäristöälykkäät sovellukset palvelevat enimmäkseen jokapäiväistä elämäämme, kuten turvallisuutta, kulunvalvontaa ja elämyspalveluita. Ympäristöälykkäitä ratkaisuja tarvitaan myös hajautetussa automaatiossa ja kohteiden automaattisessa seurannassa. Tutkimuksen aikana Seinäjoen ammattikorkeakoulussa on tutkittu lyhyen kantaman langatonta tekniikkaa: suunniteltu ja kehitetty pienivirtaisia radionappeja, niitten ohjelmointiympäristöä sekä langattoman verkon synkronointia, tiedonkeruuta ja reititystä. Lisäksi on simuloitu eri reititystapoja, sisäpaikannusta ja kaivinkoneen kalibrointia soveltaen mm. neurolaskentaa. Tekniikkaa on testattu myös käytännön sovelluksissa. Ympäristöälykkäät sovellusalueet ovat ehkä nopeimmin kasvava lähitulevaisuuden ala tietotekniikassa. Tutkitulla tekniikalla on runsaasti uusia haasteita ihmisten hyvinvointia, terveyttä ja turvallisuutta lisäävissä sovelluksissa, kuten myös teollisuuden uusissa sovelluksissa, esimerkiksi älykkäässä energiansiirtoverkossa.The development of computing is moving from mainframe computers to distributed intelligence with wireless features. The automated functions around us, in the form of small electronic devices, are increasing and the pace is continuously accelerating. The number of these applications will increase in the future, but suitable features needed are lacking and suitable technology development is still ongoing. The existing wireless short-range standards are mostly suitable for use in industry and in multimedia applications, but they are only partly suitable for the new network feature demands of the ambient intelligence applications. The ambient intelligent applications will serve us in our daily lives: security, access control and exercise services. Ambient intelligence is also adopted by industry in distributed amorphous automation, in access monitoring and the control of machines and devices. During this research, at Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences, we have researched, designed and developed short-range wireless technology: low-power radio buttons with a programming environment for them as well as synchronization, data collecting and routing features for the wireless network. We have simulated different routing methods, indoor positioning and excavator calibration using for example neurocomputing. In addition, we have tested the technology in practical applications. The ambient intelligent applications are perhaps the area growing the most in information technology in the future. There will be many new challenges to face to increase welfare, health, security, as well as industrial applications (for example, at factories and in smart grids) in the future.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Discrete Event Modeling and Simulation for IoT Efficient Design Combining WComp and DEVSimPy Framework

International audienceOne of today's challenges in the framework of ubiquitous computing concerns the design of ambient systems including sensors, smart-phones, interconnected objects, computers, etc. The major difficulty is to propose a compositional adaptation which aims to integrate new features that were not foreseen in the design, remove or exchange entities that are no longer available in a given context. In order to provide help to overcome this difficulty, a new approach based on the definition of strategies validated using discrete-event simulation is proposed. Such strategies make it possible to take into account conflicts and compositional adaptation of components in ambient systems. These are defined and validate using a discrete-event formalism to be integrated into a prototyping and dynamic execution environment for ambient intelligence applications. The proposed solution allows the designers of ambient systems to define the optimum matching of all components to each other. One pedagogical example is presented (switch-lamp system) as a proof of the proposed approach