Computational intelligence

Abstract

Ambient intelligence is aimed at the realization of electronic environments that are sensitive and responsive to the presence of people (Aarts et al. 2002). The word "ambient" in ambient intelligence refers to our physical surrounding and reflects typical systems' requirements such as distribution, ubiquity, and transparency. The word "intelligence" reflects that the surroundings exhibit specific forms of social interaction, i.e., the ability to recognize the people who live and work in it, to grasp context, to learn and adapt to the users' behavior, and to show emotion. As ambient intelligence is aimed at opening a world of unprecedented experiences, the interaction of people with ambient environments needs to become intelligent. Notions as media at your fingertips, enhanced-media experiences, and ambient atmospheres refer to novel and inspiring concepts that are aimed at realizing specific user needs and benefits such as personal expression, social presence, and well-being. These benefits seem quite obvious from a human perspective, but are quite hard to realize because of their intrinsic complexity and ambiguity. Obviously, the intelligence experienced from the interaction with ambient intelligent environments will be determined to a large extent by the computational intelligence exhibited by the computing platforms embedded in the environment, and consequently, by the algorithms that are executed by the platforms (Verhaegh et al. 2004). The algorithmic techniques and methods that apply to design for intelligence in ambient intelligent environments are combined in the scientific and technological pursuit known as computational intelligence, which is aimed at designing and analyzing algorithms that upon execution give electronic systems intelligent behavior. For an introduction to the basic concepts in this field we refer to Engelbrecht (2002). © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.