Ambient Intelligence (AmI), as a new vision and concept of the tomorrow, gathers a few features regarding both the integration of technology in the environment and the capacity technology has to recognize the user and its context, the system capacity to iAmbient Intelligence (AmI), ubiquitous computing, scenario, artificial intelligence (AI)

Boldeanu Dana Maria

Gheorghe Mirela

Ivancenco Constanta Veronica

English

Research Papers in Economics

963 
MODERN APPROACES IN THE CONTEXT OF AMBIENT INTELLIGENCE  
 
Ivancenco Constan a Veronica  
Academia de Studii Economice Bucureşti Facultatea Contabilitate şi Informatică de Gestiune Pia a Romană nr. 6, 
sector 1, Bucureşti, CP 010374 Email: vivancenco@yahoo.de  Telefon: 0723587743 
Gheorghe Mirela 
Academia de Studii Economice Bucureşti Facultatea Contabilitate şi Informatică de Gestiune 
Pia a Romană nr. 6, sector 1, Bucureşti, CP 010374 Email: mirelaghe@gmail.com Telefon: 0723858611 
Boldeanu Dana Maria 
Academia de Studii Economice Bucureşti Facultatea Contabilitate şi Informatică de Gestiune Pia a Romană nr. 6, 
sector 1, Bucureşti, CP 010374 Email: danabolde@gmail.com Telefon: 0721803603 
 
Ambient  Intelligence  (AmI),  as  a  new  vision  and  concept  of  the  tomorrow,  gathers  a  few  features  regarding  both  the 
integration of technology in the environment and the capacity technology has to recognize the user and its context, the system 
capacity to intelligently answer users’ requests.  
The purpose of the present paper is to describe this emerging field of research and development which is rapidly gaining wide 
attention in that last few years, from an increasing number of researchers worldwide, especially from Europe. 
Ambient Intelligence is considered the next step for Artificial Intelligence, in the context of supporting people in having a 
better access to the essential knowledge for taking better decisions when interacting with modern environments. 
 
Keywords: Ambient Intelligence (AmI), ubiquitous computing, scenario, artificial intelligence (AI) 
 
The article’s JEL code: O14, O33 
 
1. Conceptual framework of Ambient Intelligence  
Ambient  intelligence  (Ambient  Intelligence  -  AmI)  is  a  basic  concept  for  normative  visions  for  information 
technology development in the European Union, a general framework for the future European information society. 
The European Commission’s Information Society Technologies Advisory Group (ISTAG)
 587 worked since 1999 on 
the  vision  of  IST  development  in  the  5th  and  6th  Framework  Programme
588.  These  visions  and  ideas  are 
summarized by the concept of AmI. 
During the last few years, AmI has been present in almost all discussions on the future of communication, a fact 
which is proven by the over 15 international conferences organized only within European frontiers: European 
Symposium on AmI - Eidhoven; Smart Objects Conference – Grenoble; International Conference on Concurrent 
Enterprising – Leiden (Netherlands); International Conference on Pervasive Computing  - Linz and Vienna, to 
mention just a few of the most relevant. 
The ambient intelligence expression  is  only  on  European  version.  Big  companies like  IBM  are  talking  about 
“Pervasive  Computing”,  HP  about  “cooltown”,  MIT  about  ‘Things  that  Think”  and  Xerox  about  “ubiquitous 
computing”.  The giant Dutch electronics company Royal Philips opened in 2002 the doors of a HomeLab, an 
ambitious experiment in developing ultra-modern living systems and consider that what's driving the research: 
"Ambient Intelligence," is a 21st century cousin of artificial intelligence
589. 
The ISTAG reports define AmI at a conceptual level and identify important technologies for achieving it. In the 
paper called “Ambient Intelligence: From Vision to Reality”, ISTAG refers to the specific AmI components: smart 
materials,  micro-electromechanical  systems  and  sensor  technologies,  embedded  systems,  ubiquitous 
communications, I/O device technology, and adaptive software.
590 
Regardless of the term used, the competition is strong when it comes to defining a brand that will rule over 
anything that is related to communication and lifestyle in the decade that follows. 
Ambient Intelligence brings a special perspective to the on-going research associated with technical fields like 
ubiquitous computing, pervasive and proactive computing, ambient computing, embedded computing and 
smart objects.  
Ambient Intelligence has become well-focused by putting people and social contexts at the centre, while at the 
same  time  aiming  to distribute,  embed, coordinate and interactively  deliver  computing  intelligence  within the 
surrounding environment. The notion of Ambient Intelligence, as described above, is becoming a de facto key 
                                                       
587 ISTAG, “Scenarios for Ambient Intelligence”, European Commission, 2001, available online at www.cordis.lu/ist/istag.html 
588Wierzbicki,  Andrzej  P.  “The  concept  of  ambient  intelligence  and  decision  support  for  telecommunications”,  Journal  of 
Telecommunications and Information Technology, no. 3/2002 
589Peterson, Karen “Home Sweet Ambient Home, from Philips”, May 8, 2002, available online at http://www.10meters.com/homelab1.html 
590  ISTAG, “Ambient Intelligence: From Vision to Reality”, European Commission, 2003, available online at 
ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/ist/docs/istag-ist2003_consolidated_report.pdf 964 
dimension of the emerging Information Society, since many of the new generation industrial digital products and 
services are clearly shifted towards an overall intelligent computing environment.
591 
Ambient Intelligence without invasion of privacy represents a long-term vision for the EU Information Society 
Technologies  Research  program,  with  the  aim  of  bringing  together  researchers  across  multiple  disciplines: 
computer science, social sciences, physics, biology, engineering, design, architecture & philosophy to name a 
few
592.  
Shortly, ambient intelligence is a future information society environment with intelligence embedded anywhere but 
in an unobtrusive fashion, with the emphasis on
593: 
  greater user-friendliness; 
  more efficient services support; 
  user empowerment; 
  support for human interactions. 
 
2. ISTAG Scenarios for Ambient intelligence 
As a result of a European program the aim of ambient intelligence involves the convergence of several computing 
areas and is meant to describe in different scenarios what living with AmI might be for the ordinary citizens in the 
year of 2010. In order to answer to an important question bounded of critical aspects of AmI, meaning “What 
aspects of AmI would people soonest buy?” ISTAG asked the Institute for Prospective Technology Studies (IPTS) 
from Seville to develop a series of “scenarios for ambient intelligence”. 
There are four principal scenarios described in details in the ISTAG Report are referring to the relationships 
between  humans  and  personal communication  devices  in  a  business environment, the  necessary  technological 
requirements and technologies to use for travel and commerce and global resources for social learning, group 
dynamics and so others. The suggestive names of these scenarios are the following: 
  Scenario “Maria” – road warrior 
  Scenario “Dymitrios” – digital Me (DMe)  
  Scenario “Carmen” – traffic, sustainability, commerce 
  Scenario “Annette and Solomon” – an ambient for social learning  
The AmI scenarios are not predictions. They describe plausible present and future and do not forecast specific 
trends in technologies. The aim of the scenarios is to improve the people general understanding and vision of the 
development of AmI and its possible future impact.  
 
The main structuring differentials between the scenarios are
594: 
  - Economic and personal efficiency versus sociability/humanistic drivers (goals) 
  - Communal versus individual as the user orientation driver (actors). 
 
 
Figure 1. Paths and alternative developments of AmI
595 
                                                       
591 Stephanidis, Constantine “A European Ambient Intelligence Research Facility at ICS-FORTH”, Oct. 2006 
592 G.  Riva  & et.al. “Ambient Intelligence  The evolution of technology,  communication and cognition towards the future of human-
computer interaction”, IOS Press, 2001, available online at http://www.ambientintelligence.org 
593  Wierzbicki,  Andrzej  P.  “The  concept  of  ambient  intelligence  and  decision  support  for  telecommunications”,  Journal  of 
Telecommunications and Information Technology, no. 3/2002 
594 ISTAG, “Scenarios for Ambient Intelligence”, European Commission, 2001, available online at www.cordis.lu/ist/istag.html 
595 ISTAG, “Scenarios for Ambient Intelligence”, European Commission, 2001, available online at www.cordis.lu/ist/istag.html 965 
 
The Figure 1 shows a cross of two axes which delimit the AmI scenarios and provides a structure that isolates some 
of the main features and alternative development paths for Ambient Intelligence. Very interesting are the critical 
factors for the implementation of the above scenarios, specified in the IPTS-ISTAG report. These factors are socio-
political, business-economic, technological and others. The main technological factors are listed as following: 
  very unobtrusive hardware (miniaturisation, Nanotechnology, smart devices, sensors etc.) 
  seamless  mobile-fixed  communication  infrastructure  (interoperability,  wired  and  wireless  networks, 
service-oriented architecture, semantic web etc) 
  dynamic and massively distributed device networks (e.g. service discovery, auto-configuration, end-user 
programmable devices and systems etc.) 
  natural feeling human interfaces (intelligent agents, multimodal interaction, context awareness etc.) 
  dependability and security systems (self-testing and self repairing software, privacy ensuring technology 
etc.) 
 
3. Ambient Intelligence versus Artificial Intelligence 
The  two  terms,  “intelligence”  and  “ambient”  suggest  a  change  of  perspective:  if  the  technology  goes  to  the 
background, the user gets to occupy the forefront; in the user-system interaction, the system is the one that must 
adjust  to  the  user’s  peculiarities  and  not  the  other  way  around.  This  new  vision  provides  interfaces  with 
“intelligence”.  
The intelligence contained in the information components is expressed via: 
- the social nature of the user interface  - expresses the degree in which the system behavior is appropriate for the 
user’s customs, knowledge, intuition and situations; 
- the system’s adjusting capacity with respect to the user and the environment – is done by understanding the 
context and learning as a result of interactions with the user. 
The main target of the interfaces of the future is multimodal communication (sometimes called “multi-sensor”), a 
communication that effectively combines the adjusting capacities of ambient intelligence systems and the natural 
perception and expression possibilities of the individual (speaking, handwriting, gestures). 
The concept of ambient intelligence gathers a few features regarding both the integration of technology in the 
environment and the capacity technology has to recognize the user and his/her context, the system capacity to 
intelligently answer users’ requests
596. 
Ambient  Intelligence  technologies  integrate  sensing  capabilities,  processing  power,  reasoning  mechanisms, 
networking  facilities,  applications  and  services,  digital  content  and  actuating  capabilities  distributed  in  the 
surrounding  environment.  While  a  wide  variety  of  different  technologies  is  involved,  the  goal  of  Ambient 
Intelligence is to either entirely hide their presence from users or to smoothly integrate them in their surroundings 
as enhanced environment artifacts rather than technological gadgets. This way, the computing-oriented connotation 
of technology essentially fades out or even disappears in the environment, providing seamless and unobtrusive 
interaction paradigms. Therefore, people and their social situation, ranging from individuals to groups, be they 
work groups, families or friends and their corresponding environments (office buildings, homes, public spaces, etc) 
are at the centre of the design considerations as we can see in Figure 2. 
 
                                                       
596  Aarts,  Emile,  Marzano,  Stefano  (editors)  The  New  Everyday:  Vision  on  Ambient  Intelligence,  010  Publishers,  Rotterdam,  The 
Netherlands, 2003 966 
 
Figure 2. The structure of Ambient Intelligence system 
 
Figure 2 shows the importance of Artificial Intelligent (AI) component within an AmI system. AmI environment is 
seen and sent through different sensors (human, net sensors like GPS for example, raw sensors, audio and speech 
image, etc.). To offer decision maker models of action and pertinent decisions, AmI system includes both an 
operational, technical component (hardware, operating systems, communications, databases, computer graphics, 
etc) and an intelligent one which includes methods and techniques of AI (processing language natural, text mining, 
expert  systems,  machine  learning,  etc).  Human  component  plays  an  important  part  next  to  the  previous 
components, both decision taking and perceptions sent will interact with the AmI environment. 
According to Ramos and his colleagues in 2008 AmI systems should be able to interact intelligently with humans 
and this interaction requires context awareness. In AmI systems, context awareness will involve such factors as 
mixed-initiative interfaces, adapting to users and situations, learning by observing users, consciousness of the 
current situation, and scalable intelligence
597. 
The system capacity to intelligently answer users’ requests gathers three defining features of ambient intelligence, 
namely: 
  customization (to the perceived specific needs of the user); 
  adjustment (in order to consider the time modification of the user’s knowledge and behavior) ; 
  anticipation of the user’s desires. 
 
4. Conclusions 
The present development of the informational environment is a natural one in which business environment has to 
adapt,  to  integrate  the  best  techniques  and  tools  (Data  Mining  techniques,  statistics  algorithms,  artificial 
                                                       
597 Ramos, Carlos, Augusto, Juan Carlos, Shapiro, Daniel ”Ambient Intelligence - the Next Step for Artificial Intelligence”, IEEE Computer 
Society, Volume 23, Issue 2, March-April 2008, Page(s):15 - 18 
Process and customize 
Ambient Intelligence Environment 
Home – Factory – Office – Meeting room – Hospital …. 
Sensors 
Automatic and 
human sensing 
 
Processing Database 
Decision support  
Systems 
- Data mining 
- Expert systems 
 
Decision 
taking process 
Multiagent 
systems 
 
Computational 
intelligence 
 
Natural 
language 
processing 
 
User-
friendliness 
Interface 967 
intelligence, neural networks, fuzzy logics, genetic algorithms, etc.) that will allow a data analyze in real time. 
Also, it will be the foundation for multidimensional analysis of financial data to provide pertinent answers to 
relevant decision makers within a specific organization. Moreover, centralized and synthetic information which 
provide the best decisional support is a sine qua non condition for an efficient management system. 
The research underlines the necessity of using methods and techniques like multiagent systems, fuzzy systems, 
logic programming and other tools to develop an AmI system. AmI can’t be completely achieved without AI. The 
structure of system activities through particularizing of actors (users) rolls which will diversify the variety of AmI 
systems. 
 
References 
1. Aarts, Emile, Marzano, Stefano (editors) The New Everyday: Vision on Ambient Intelligence, 010 Publishers, 
Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 2003 
2. Ramos, Carlos, Augusto, Juan Carlos, Shapiro, Daniel ”Ambient Intelligence - the Next Step for Artificial 
Intelligence, IEEE Computer Society, Volume 23, Issue 2, March-April 2008 Page(s):15 - 18 
3. Wierzbicki, Andrzej P.  “The concept of ambient intelligence and decision support for telecommunications”, 
Journal of Telecommunications and Information Technology, no. 3/2002 
4. IST Advisory Group, “Scenarios for Ambient Intelligence”, European Commission, 2001, available online at 
www.cordis.lu/ist/istag.html.  
5. IST Advisory Group, “Ambient Intelligence: From Vision to Reality”, European Commission, 2003, available 
online at ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/ist/docs/istag-ist2003_consolidated_report.pdf 
6. Peterson, Karen E. “Home Sweet Ambient Home, from Philips”, May 8, 2002,  
http://www.10meters.com/homelab1.html 
7.  Riva,  G.,  Vatalaro,  F.,  Davide  F.,  Alcaniz,  M.  “Ambient  Intelligence  The  evolution  of  technology, 
communication  and  cognition  towards  the  future  of  human-computer  interaction”,  IOS  Press,  2001,  available 
online at http://www.ambientintelligence.org 
8.  Stephanidis,  Constantine  “A  European  Ambient  Intelligence  Research  Facility  at  ICS-FORTH”,  oct  2006 
available online at http://www.ics.forth.gr/ami 
   

A European Ambient Intelligence Research Facility at ICS-FORTH”,

Ambient Intelligence The evolution of technology, communication and cognition towards the future of human-computer interaction”,

Daniel ”Ambient Intelligence - the Next Step for Artificial Intelligence,

Group, “Ambient Intelligence: From Vision to Reality”, European Commission,

Group, “Scenarios for Ambient Intelligence”, European Commission,

Home Sweet Ambient Home,

The concept of ambient intelligence and decision support for telecommunications”,

MODERN APPROACES IN THE CONTEXT OF AMBIENT INTELLIGENCE

http://steconomice.uoradea.ro/anale/volume/2009/v4-management-and-marketing/197.pdf

MODERN APPROACES IN THE CONTEXT OF AMBIENT INTELLIGENCE

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