Abstract |
Ambient Intelligence (AmI) envisages that technology and information flow around the
physical environment, and objects, are enhanced with computer technology to communicate,
share information and collaborate with other technological devices in an intelligent fashion,
thus forming a ubiquitous and pervasive computing landscape, where implicit interaction and
continuous co-operation is becoming the norm of computer supported activities. AmI
constitutes an emerging market that is forecasted to exhibit exponential growth in the
forthcoming years. Yet, AmI systems can only maximize their efficiency, extensibility and
adaptation to the needs of their users, if they are programmable.
This thesis proposes the AmI-Solertis framework which empowers users to create
behavior scenarios in AmI by reviewing and modifying the “high-level business logic” of an
intelligent environment through an advanced programming platform and an accompanying
chat-bot agent. In addition to the framework, the AmI-Solertis Studio offers a complete suite
of tools allowing management, programming, testing and monitoring of all the individual
artifacts (i.e., services, hardware modules, software components, etc.) of the overall AmI
Environment.
From an engineering perspective, the AmI-Solertis framework: (i) introduces a unified
Hybrid Communication protocol which supports synchronous, asynchronous and eventbased
communication, (ii) unifies the definition and introduction of new devices, services and
software components, (iii) facilitates the integration and usage of heterogeneous services in
a standardized - yet agnostic - manner, (iv) delivers a scripting mechanism that can
dynamically adapt the execution flow and govern the behavior of the entire AmI environment,
and (v) offers a standard library of tools (i.e., Analytics and History, Fault Tolerance, Storage
Management, Common Utilities) that developers can use.
From a user perspective, the AmI-Solertis Studio constitutes a web-based Integrated
Development Environment (IDE) and Control Center that can be used as a creative tool for
designing user experiences in intelligent environments. In particular, the studio: (i) supports
the entire development life-cycle of an AmI system, (ii) empower users to explore and adapt
software to their personal needs – through a user-friendly scripting environment - or develop
new innovative applications, (iii) simplifies service discovery, definition, and management,
(iv) scaffolds typical designs, (v) offers multiple visual representations, (vi) provides testing
facilities, (vii) facilitate collaboration between users, (viii) assists real-time management of
the AmI environment, and (ix) delivers an AmI-Solertis virtual agent in the form of a chatbot,
that can communicate with the end-users via a natural language textual interface in order
to help them accomplish numerous orchestration-related tasks.
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