All about Ambient intelligence(AmI)

What is Ambient intelligence(AmI) ?

   Ambient intelligence(AmI) is an emerging discipline that brings intelligence to our every-day environments and makes those environments sensitive to us.

   Ambient Intelligence is a network of hidden intelligent interfaces that recognize our presence and mould our environment to our immediate needs.

    AmI refers to an exciting new paradigm in information technology, in which people are empowered through a Digital environment that is aware of their presence and context and is sensitive, adaptive and responsive to their needs, habits, gestures and emotions.

It reduces the stress leading to an overall higher quality of life.

Characteristics:

Embedded, aware, natural, personalized, adaptive, anticipatory

AmI stems from the union of three key technical areas:

•         ubiquitous/pervasive computing

•         ubiquitous communication

•         intuitive and intelligent user interfaces

The convergence of such technologies would lead to the development of a seamless environment that is constantly aware of the presence of people, their needs and desires and is capable of intelligently responding via intuitive and natural user interfaces such as gestures, speech, etc.

The following issues have to be addressed as well: energy, environment, social sustainability, privacy, social robustness and fault tolerance.

 Requirements of Ambient Intelligence

Interaction in-between AmI and other disciplines

Ambient Intelligence aims to enhance the way people interact with their environment to promote safety and to enrich their lives.

A Smart Home is one such system but the idea extends to hospitals, public transport, factories and other environments. The achievement of Ambient Intelligence largely depends on the technology deployed (sensors and devices interconnected through networks) as well as on the intelligence of the software used for decision-making.

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. 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. AI is used in a broad sense, encompassing areas like agent-based software and robotics.

AmI systems provide flexibility, adaptation, anticipation and a sensible interface in the interest of users. Here we expand Raffle’s definition to emphasize Intelligence as a fundamental element of an AmI system:  “A digital environment that proactively, but sensibly, supports people in their daily lives.” 

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 system’s 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. 

Applications of Ambient intelligence(AmI)

•        Health-related applications

•        Public transportation sector

•        Education services

•        Emergency services

•        Production-oriented services

Biggest adopters of AmI:

•        Healthcare

•        Home automation

•        Health-related applications: Hospitals can increase the efficiency of their services by monitoring patients’ health and progress by performing automatic analysis of activities in their rooms. (Sensing and monitoring)

•        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.

•        Production-oriented places: Companies can use RFID sensors to tag different products and track them along the production and commercialization processes.

•        It helps improving the process by providing valuable information for the company on how to react to favorable demand and unusual events like products that become unsuitable for sale.

Imagine in the future…. Intelligence Are Embedded

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