Professional Documents
Culture Documents
SEMINAR REPORT
2009-2011
SUBMITTED BY
RENETHA J B
CERTIF I CATE
First of all let me thank our Director Prof: Dr. K. Poulose Jacob, Dept. of
Computer Science, CUSAT who provided with the necessary facilities and advice. I am
also thankful to Mr. G.Santhosh Kumar, Lecturer, Dept of Computer Science,
CUSAT for his valuable suggestions and support for the completion of this seminar.
With great pleasure I remember Dr. Sumam Mary Idicula, Reader, Dept. of Computer
Science, CUSAT for her sincere guidance. Also I am thankful to all of my teaching and
non-teaching staff in the department and my friends for extending their warm kindness
and help.
I would like to thank my parents without their blessings and support I would not
have been able to accomplish my goal. I also extend my thanks to all my well wishers.
Finally, I thank the almighty for giving the guidance and blessings.
ABSTRACT
2 History 2
3 AmI
3.1 Vision 3
3.2 Semantics 4
3.3 Key concepts 4
3.4 Key Technologies 5
4 Social and political aspects of AmI 6
5 Relation between AmI and other Computer Science areas 7
1. Introduction
Ambient Intelligence (AmI) is a new paradigm in Information Technology that has
potential for great impact in the future. The vision of AmI is that the people will be
surrounded by intelligent objects that can sense the context and respond according to the
desire of the people. AmI is a multidisciplinary topic, since it combines the features of many
of the areas in Computer Science.
In the last five years, we have seen significant advances in three promising technology
areas: virtual environments, in which 3D displays and interaction devices immerse the user in
a synthesized world, mobile communication and sensors, in which increasingly small and
inexpensive terminals and wireless networking allow users to roam the real world without
being limited to stationary machines. The merging of these areas allows the emergence of a
new vision: the Ambient Intelligence (AmI).
AmI refers to a digital environment that proactively, but sensibly, supports people in
their everyday lives. It will make the feeling that the people live with technology. It is aligned
with the concept of disappearing computer, since the AmI environment make the
technology invisible. As the devices grow smaller, more connected and more integrated into
our environment, the technology disappears into our surroundings.
The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the
fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it. M. Weiser
The basic idea behind AmI is that by enriching an environment with technology
(mainly sensors and devices interconnected through a network), a system can be built to take
decisions to benefit the users of that environment based on real-time information gathered
and historical data accumulated.
2. History
In 1998, the board of management of Philips commissioned a series of presentations
and internal workshops, organized by Eli Zelkha and Brian Epstein of Palo Alto Ventures
(who coined the name 'Ambient Intelligence') to investigate different scenarios that would
transform the high-volume consumer electronic industry from the current fragmented with
features world into a world in 2020 where user-friendly devices support ubiquitous
information, communication and entertainment. In the years after, these developments grew
more mature. In 1999, Philips joined the Oxygen alliance, an international consortium of
industrial partners within the context of the MIT Oxygen project, aimed at developing
technology for the computer of the 21st century. In 2000, plans were made to construct a
feasibility and usability facility dedicated to Ambient Intelligence. This HomeLab officially
opened on 24 April 2002.
Along with the development of the vision at Philips, a number of parallel initiatives
started to explore ambient intelligence in more detail. In 2001, the concept of Ambient
Intelligence (AmI) was taken up by European Commissions Information Society
Technologies Advisory Group (ISTAG). The term Ambient Intelligence is defined by ISTAG
as "the convergence of ubiquitous computing, ubiquitous communication, and interfaces
adapting to the user". Following the advice of the ISTAG, the European Commission used
the vision for the launch of their sixth framework (FP5) in Information, Society and
Technology (IST), with a subsidiary budget of 3.7 billion euros. EU FP6: driving vision in a
3.7BEuro 5 year ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) research programme
(2002-2006). EU FP7 (9.1 BEuro for ICT): acknowledged (mainstreamed) but more
focussed, systemic and transformational (2007-2012)
The European Commission played a crucial role in the further development of the
AmI vision. As a result of many initiatives the AmI vision gained traction. Fraunhofer
Society started several activities in a variety of domains including multimedia, microsystems
design and augmented spaces. MIT started an AmI research group at their Media Lab.
Several more research projects started in a variety of countries such as USA, Canada, Spain,
France and the Netherlands. In 2004, the first European symposium on AmI (EUSAI) was
held and many other conferences have been held that address special topics in AmI.
3.1 Vision
Ambient Intelligence (AmI) will radically change how people interact with
technology. In AmI, people will be surrounded by a multitude of interconnected embedded
systems. These devices will be able to locate and recognize objects and people, as well as
peoples intentions.
The vision of AmI is characterized by two key features: intelligence and embedding.
The feature of intelligence refers to the fact that the digital environment is able to analyze
the context, adapt itself to the people and objects that reside in it, learn from their behavior,
and eventually recognize as well as express emotion. The feature of embedding means that
miniaturized devices will increasingly become part of the invisible background of peoples
activities, and that social interaction and functionality will move to the foreground.
According to the AmI vision, people will not just use technology: they will live with
it.
Hence, AmI is :-
smart electronic environments that are sensitive and responsive to the presence of
people
3.2 Semantics
Ambient Intelligence refers to electronic environments that are sensitive and
responsive to the presence of people
The term ambient refers to the environment and reflects the need for typical
requirements such as distribution, ubiquity, and transparency.
The term Intelligence means the digital surroundings exhibit specific forms of social
interaction. In other words, an environment must recognize the people that live in it, adapt
itself to them, learn from their behavior, and possibly show emotion. In short, the
environment should be intelligent.
Context aware. The system can recognize you and your situational context.
The first two elements relate to the integration of hardware devices into the
environment, and refer to embedded systems in general. Embedded systems play an
important role in the realization of ambient intelligence because they account for the
embedding of electronic devices into peoples surroundings.
The three other key elements of ambient intelligence concern the adjustment of
electronic systems in response to users. These system adjustments occur on different time
scales. Personalization refers to those occurring on a short time scale (for example, installing
personalized settings). Adaptation involves adjustments to changing user behaviors detected
by monitoring the user over longer periods of time. Ultimately, when the system gets to know
the user so well that it can detect behavioral patterns, adjustments are possible over a very
long period of time.
In order for AmI to become a reality a number of key technologies are required:
Unobtrusive hardware (Miniaturisation, Nanotechnology, smart devices,
sensors etc.)
Dynamic and massively distributed device networks, which are easy to control
and program (e.g. service discovery, auto-configuration, end-user
programmable devices and systems etc.).
Dependable and secure systems and devices (self-testing and self repairing
software, privacy ensuring technology etc.)
In AmI, technology lives with the people, hence AmI has both social and political
influences. The current phase of AmI/pervasive computing, in which computers are already
being embedded in many devices, has begun to affect our everyday lives in ways we do not
even notice.
ISTAG identified a series of necessary characteristics that will permit the eventual
societal acceptance of AmI.
AmI should:
help to build knowledge and skills for work, better quality of work, citizenship and
consumer choice.
Fig 1
First, a machine was shared by many highly trained programmers. Then it became
possible in many countries around the world that many people, not necessarily with a high
level of training, will have access to one PC in an individual basis. Now many people can
have access to several computing devices like a PC, a laptop and a PDA at work plus a PC at
home and various smaller processing units embedded in electro-domestic appliances.
All seems to indicate this trend will continue. Slowly systems are being designed in
such a way that people do not need to be a computer specialist to benefit from computing
power. This technical possibility is being explored in an area called Ambient Intelligence
(AmI) where the idea of making computing available to people in a non-intrusive way is at
the core of its values. The benefit of an AmI system is measured by how much can give to
people whilst minimizing explicit interaction. The aim is to enrich specific places (a room, a
building, a car, a street) with computing facilities
Fig 2
Of Importance for AmI are the 5Ws (Who, Where, What, When and Why) principle
of design:
Who: the identification of a user of the system and the role that user plays within the system
in relation to other users. This can be extended to identifying important elements like pets,
robots and objects of interest within the environment.
Where: the tracking of the location where a user or an object is geographically located at
each moment during the system operation. This can demand a mix of technologies, for
example technology that may work well indoors may be useless outdoors and vice-versa.
When: the association of activities with time is required to build a realistic picture of a
systems dynamic. For example, users, pets and robots living in a house will change location
often change location and knowing when those changes happened and for how long they
lasted are fundamental to the understanding of how an environment is evolving.
What: the recognition of activities and tasks users are performing is fundamental in order to
provide appropriate help if required. The multiplicity of possible scenarios that can follow an
action makes this very difficult. Spatial and temporal awareness help to achieve task
awareness.
Why: the capability to infer and understand intentions and goals behind activities is one of
the hardest challenges in the area but a fundamental one which allows the system to
anticipate needs and serve users in a sensible way
People: Humans exploit everything around them to improve their lives and expand their
powers. They want to acquire everything with minimum effort and maximum comfort. This
desire, to have devices that amplify human powers without hindering or cluttering their lives
is what drives the increasing miniaturization of devices. Many devices have already made the
transition from big static objects to small objects that people can carry around on their bodies.
Clocks are now wristwatches, and more recently phones and audio systems have reached the
stage of becoming worn on the body. This instinct to find greater comfort, power, knowledge,
and freedom has been the main driving force behind technological innovation.
Ambient intelligence intends to improve the quality of peoples lives. Not everything
thats possible with technology is actually desirable. Therefore, its crucial that people make
the right choices with ambient intelligence. This is only possible if people agree on what
quality of life and what sort of world they would like to see develop.
Planet: AmI has a great contribution to the planet. AmI provides better care for the
environment. Numerous novel ecological developments are possible by integrating smart
electronics into the environment. They aid in checking pollution and checking uncontrolled
dumping of waste products. There are also techniques for determining energy wastage and
reduce needless consumption.
Fig 3
Sensors bring data to the system. The data collected is transmitted by the network and
pre-processed by the middleware, which collates and harmonises data from different devices.
In order to make decision-making easier and more beneficial to the occupants of the
environment the system will have a higher level layer of reasoning which will accomplish
diagnosis and advise or assist humans with responsibility for intervention.
Elements that may be included in the high level Decision Making process are a
Knowledge Repository where the events are collected and an AI Reasoner which will
apply for example spatio-temporal reasoning to take decisions. For example, a decision could
be to perform some action in the environment and this is enabled via Actuators. Knowledge
discovery and machine learning techniques learn from the acquired information in order to
update the AI Reasoner in the light of experience of the system.
Ubiquitous computing means any computing device, while moving with you, can
build incrementally dynamic models of its various environments and configure its services
accordingly. The devices will be able to either "remember" past environments they operated
in, or proactively build up services in new environments. Ubiquitous computing" refers to
omnipresent computers that serve people in their everyday lives at home and at work,
functioning invisibly and unobtrusively in the background and freeing people to a large
extent from tedious routine tasks. This includes pen-based technology, hand-held or portable
devices, large-scale interactive screens, wireless networking infrastructure, and voice or
vision technology.
Wireless LAN (W-LAN) applications per standard IEEE 802.11b offer high-speed
transfer rates of 11 Mbit/s and can be extended over entire office buildings and production
areas by using several access points. While W-LAN is considerably cheaper than a traditional
stationary LAN, it is often still too costly to be included in small individual devices
High rate W-PANs per standard IEEE 802.15 TG3, launched in 2003, use higher
power devices (8 dBm) than regular Bluetooth equipment (0 dBm) to transmit data at a rate
of up to 55 Mbit/s and over a range of up to 55 m. This technology is, therefore, an attractive
Low power W-PANs per standard IEEE 802.15 TG4 are particularly useful for handheld
devices since energy consumption for data transmission purposes, and costs, are extremely
low. The range of operation of up to 75 m is higher than current Bluetooth applications, but
the data transfer rate of 250 Kbit/s is lower.
Wireless body area networks (BANs) interlink various wearable devices, such as
wireless data glasses, earpieces, microphones, and sensors, and can connect them to outside
networks. BANs are often used for medical applications but also in work-related fields, for
example, to provide production operators with instructions that are adapted to the respective
work situation. BANs usually consist of a central network unit, which connects the devices
and which can provide an interface to further networks outside the BAN, for example, via
Bluetooth. Advantages of BANs versus W-PANs are the short range and the resulting lower
risk of tapping and interference, as well as low frequency operation, which leads to lower
system complexity. Technologies used for wireless BANs include magnetic, capacitive, low-
power far-field and infrared connections, while non-wireless BANs use wires or conductive
fabrics.
User adaptive interfaces, the third integral part of AmI, are also referred to as
"Intelligent social user interfaces" (ISUIs). These interfaces go beyond the traditional
keyboard and mouse to improve human interaction with technology by making it more
intuitive, efficient, and secure. They allow the computer to know and sense far more about a
person, the situation the person is in, the environment, and related objects than traditional
interfaces can.
ISUIs encompass interfaces that create a perceptive computer environment rather than
one that relies solely on active and comprehensive user input. ISUIs can be grouped into five
categories:
The key to an ISUI is the ease of use, in this case the ability to personalize and
adapt automatically to particular user behavior patterns (profiling) and different situations
(context awareness) by means of intelligent algorithms. In many cases, different ISUIs, such
as voice recognition and touch screen, are combined to form multi-modal interfaces. ISUIs
make network usage more secure as the interfaces can identify users automatically by, for
example, face or voice recognition instead of requesting a password.
Feature 1: Some agents could take no responsibility in building the plan because of their
limitations in processing and communication. This pushes toward the centralized
planning process.
Feature 2: The skills to perceive the environment and to perform the actions are
distributed over the agents. This pulls toward the distributed planning process.
The planning algorithms output is a sequence of actions such that, when they are executed in
a domain satisfying the initial state description, the goal will be achieved. AmI system need a
centralized planner that manages distributed capabilities.A distributed HTN approach
appears appropriate for AmI applications because it naturally supports heterogeneous agents
and knowledge exchange among them.
D-HTN planners are based on the concept of task network that is represented as
where
A task network can be represented by a graph. For example, the task network:
Fig 4
The intended meaning of this graph is that, in order to request a good g1 by e-mail, we
first have to create the RequestText t1 and look for the EmailAddress a1 of a supplier of g1,
and then we have to SendEmail with content t1 to a1.
the current task network D and a method m=(t,d), in M such that t unifies with t and by
replacing t with d in D. When only primitive tasks are left in D, a plan for the original
problem can be found. A plan is a sequence of ground primitive tasks .This pure HTN
planning process can be refined to make it more efficient by introducing backtracking, critic
functions, and other technicalities.
Each decomposition has associated three numerical indexes that are associated to:-
Performance -measures the expected effectiveness of the decomposition
Cost- measures the expected resource consumption for performing the tasks in
the decomposition
1: D = initial task
c) end if
2: end while
Fig 5
Dept. of Computer Science, Cochin University of Science & Technology 19
Ambient Intelligence (AmI)
The agent that simulates the monitoring devices on the diabetic patient is called goal
generator agent because in our application scenario it is the source of goals that the planning
system attempts to achieve. The goal generator agent stands for any device or user that can
generate a goal for the AmI system. The goal generator agent provides the input to our
planner in terms of high-level goals to be reached. The agents that populate the room in our
scenario are conceptually organized in three main classes: communication agents, repository
agents, and interactive agents.
The communication agents include the SMS agent, the email agent, the fax agent, and
the phone agent for sending and receiving SMS, e-mails, faxes, and phone calls, respectively.
The repository agents are the address book agent, a database of contacts, and the medical
store agent, a database of medicines currently present in the environment. The interactive
agents provide the sensors and the actuators to interact with the environment; they include the
thermometer agent, a temperature sensor, and the heating agent that can change the
temperature in the environment. All these agents (the goal generator agent and those
equipping the room) are supervised and coordinated by the environmental majordomo agent.
The agents represent devices that are physically and permanently part of the room (e.g.,
the heating agent) and the agents that represent mobile devices that are transiently part of the
room (e.g., the phone agent could be a cell phone carried by a person walking through the
room).
Some of the decompositions initially included in the plan libraries of some of the agents
composing the AmI system for the application scenario are listed in Fig 6.
Fig 6
Example :-
Fig 7
The two tasks are connected by a selection statement: if the output of the execution of
the task IsThere (Insulin) (that checks if some insulin is left in the room) is False then the task
Request (Insulin) (that requests to supply insulin) is executed. The planning process picks up
the nonprimitive task IsThere (Insulin). This task can be decomposed only by a primitive task
of the medical store agent.
Fig 8
Then, the nonprimitive task Request (Insulin) is considered. The SMS, e-mail, fax,
and phone agents propose their decompositions for the task in order to contact the pharmacies
by different communication means. Since the performance index value of the decomposition
proposed by the SMS agent is the highest, this is selected.
Fig 9
The planning process continues and the new inserted nonprimitive tasks are
decomposed in primitive tasks performed by the goal generator, the address book agent, and
the SMS agent.
Fig 10
The plan is now complete and ready to be executed. The execution of the plan is
supervised by the environmental majordomo that requests the agents to perform the primitive
tasks they proposed. During the execution, first the medical store is checked for insulin; if it
is found its counter is decremented by 1 and the plan execution ends since the task IsThere
(Insulin) returns True; otherwise, the execution continues by activating the other agents.
their rooms. They can also increase safety by, for example, only allowing authorized
Public transportation sector. Public transport can benefit from extra technology including
satellite services, GPS-based spatial location, vehicle identification, image processing and
other technologies to make transport more fluent and hence more efficient and safe.
progression on their tasks, frequency of attendance to specific places and health related issues
like advising on their diet regarding their habits and the class of intakes they opted for.
Emergency services. Safety-related services like fire brigades can improve the reaction to a
hazard by locating the place more efficiently and also by preparing the way to reach the place
in connection with street services. The prison service can also quickly locate a place where a
hazard is occurring or is likely to occur and prepare better access to it for security personnel.
according to the production/demand ratio of the goods produced. This will demand careful
correlation between the collection of data through sensors within the different sections of the
production line and the pool of demands via a diagnostic system which can advice the people
11. Challenges
Fig 11
The fast penetration of wireless communications has put into evidence the users need
to get easily connected anywhere and anytime at an affordable price. On the one hand,
wireless communications clearly proved that the most a technology provides simple access
means, added to freedom of movement and increased security, the most the user is willing to
accept it.
On the other hand, the most a technology is complex and costly, the less the user is
prone to accept it, in spite of possibly large potential advantages, which are generally not
reachable by the average user not interested in spending time and energies in acquiring the
underlying technology fundamentals. As a consequence, the successful systems of the future
will adhere to the paradigm of disappearing technologies, both valid for communications
and computing, and will provide improved ease-of use at the expense of an increased, but
invisible to the user, complexity of the underlying systems and networks necessary to
transport and process the information in the different multimedia forms and usage contexts.
Ambient Intelligence faces a lot of challenges. Among these are the social implications
of AmI environments, the different potentials of AmI to enrich our lives, aspects of privacy
and trust, characteristics of different AmI interactions, how much intelligence people are
willing to accept, the different dimensions of the term ambient, the design of future
interaction spaces and intelligent artifacts, factors of user experience for implicit interaction,
existing and emerging AmI application areas and scenarios, the connection of AmI concepts
to physical spaces where it happens etc.
Integrate smart media access into surroundings (audio, video, and light).
Challenges in Innovation
Challenges in Involvement
Reach out to ordinary people so as to let them participate in the AmI effort.
12. Conclusion
Ambient Intelligence (AmI) is growing fast as a multi-disciplinary topic of interest
which can allow many areas of research to have a significant beneficial influence into our
society. AmI is a vision on the future of consumer electronics, telecommunications and
computing for the time frame 20102020.
The new paradigm of ambient intelligence can bring about a revolution in the design,
appearance, and use of electronics in ordinary life. It could support and facilitate simple and
recurrent tasks, but it could also lead to a culture very different from todays. This new
culture could develop through the expansion of the use media into a world in which physical
and virtual experiences merge to support personal expression, business productivity, and
personal lifestyles
Technology will not be the limiting factor in realizing ambient intelligence. The
ingredients to let the computer disappear are already available, but the true success of the
paradigm will depend on the ability to develop concepts that allow natural interaction with
digital environments.
13. References
[1] Francesco Amigoni, Associate Member, IEEE, Nicola Gatti, Member, IEEE, Carlo
Pinciroli, and Manuel Roveri, What Planner for Ambient Intelligence
Applications? ,IEEE Transactions On Systems, Man, And CyberneticsPart A:
Systems And Humans , Vol. 35, No. 1, January 2005
[3] Carlos Ramos, Polytechnic of Porto Juan Carlos Augusto, University of Ulster Daniel
Shapiro, Institute for the Study of Learning and Expertise, Ambient Intelligencethe
Next Step for Artificial Intelligence, Published by the IEEE Computer Society,
March/April 2008.
[5] Juan Carlos Augusto and Paul McCullagh School of Computer Science and Mathematics
University of Ulster at Jordanstown BT37 0QB United Kingdom, Ambient
Intelligence: Concepts and Applications