Context-aware monitoring agents for ambient assisted living applications

Abstract

This paper presents a knowledge-based engineering framework for the design, deployment and running of context-aware monitoring agents that are dedicated to ambient assisted living applications. A new modeling approach of agent knowledge, that combines the advantages of both ontologies and object oriented modeling and programming, is proposed. In this approach, the agents’ logic is implemented using a micro-ontology and production rules based on the closed world assumption, called smart rules. These rules are managed using a standard reasoning system embedded in the agent core. Unlike semantic web approaches, the proposed approach rely on the closed world and unique name assumptions. These features are required for monitoring purposes in ambient intelligence and robotics domains. We present a practical work, where monitoring agents are instantiated in the user environment and their reasoning rules operate to handle the detection and confirmation of abnormal and emergency situations with respect to user’s context. These rules allow the agents to trigger appropriate actions with help of companion robot.