Automated and holistic design of intelligent and distributed integrated sensor systems with self-x properties for applications in vision, robotics, smart environments, and culinary assistance systems

Abstract

The ongoing advance in micro technologies gives rise to increasingly versatile and capable sensors as well as unprecedented computational power and communication options in diminishing scale. The notion of smart dust summarizes ubiquitous computing and sensing application systems, which can serve for local as well as global information acquisition and decision making. For off-the-shelf-nodes, and even more for dedicated physical designs, the system design process becomes increasingly challenging and potentially intractable. Automated design methods emerging for intelligent systems are introduced as a remedy. These considerations will be extended to variations, that multiple system instances have to face in real-world applications and potential compensation by incorporation of self-x properties. These concepts are elucidated for the case of reconfigurable and evolvable sensor electronics. Finally, an application perspective of the presented approach for integrated distributed sensing in home automation, assisted living, and in particular, smart kitchen applications, denoted as culinary assistance systems will be presented. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.