A design model applied to development of AmI systems

Abstract

Also published online by CEUR Workshop Proceedings (CEUR-WS.org, ISSN 1613-0073)Proceedings of the I International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing: Applications, Technology and Social Issues Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain, June 7-9, 2006.Ambient intelligence (AmI) represents a promising paradigm for group-centred collaborative interaction with the surrounding environment. The complexity for AmI designs is closely connected with the mechanism for describing their inherent features. What would be interesting is a method which is capable of describing these properties in a straightforward way. Task modelling techniques are a suitable method for AmI systems. This paper describes a new design and implementation proposal for developing AmI systems, starting from the conceptual and methodological frameworks proposed by AMENITIES, a methodology based on task and behaviour models for the study and development of cooperative systems, extending it with inherent AmI features. With respect to the implementation of AmI systems, an intermediate software layer supporting common functional requirements is supplied in order to simplify their development. The overall scheme therefore simplifies the analysis and development of such systems. These features are shown in a case study of a collaborative e-learning AmI systemThis research is partially supported by a Spanish R&D Project TIN2004-03140, Ubiquitous Collaborative Adaptive Training (U-CAT)