Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Smart Environments

CasAware is an Ambient Assisted Living platform, developed within an Italian research project, with the aim to improve the level of comfort and well-being of inhabitants of a house, while optimizing the energy consumption. A key feature, for successful realization of such a platform, is its capability to interoperate with other IoT platforms, which can augment CasAware with additional services. Indeed, this capability facilitates smooth communication between CasAware devices and external devices connected to other IoT platforms, thus allowing efficient exchange of messages among them. However, such integration is hindered by the heterogeneity of data models used in different platforms, which is also related to lack of common standards. In order to realize integration needed for CasAware, this paper presents an approach which exploits results of the INTER-IoT project. Specifically, the INTER-IoT methodology and a set of software tools for achieving IoT interoperability are applied. In the presented study, it is shown how the INTER-IoT based approach can facilitate interoperability between CasAware and two other platforms, which use completely different data models.

Internet of Things (IoT) based systems have revolutionised the way real world systems are inter-connected through internet. At present the application of IoT based systems is extend to real time detection and warning system. However, cost has been a major factor for development and implementation of IoT systems. Considering the cost, ease of implementation, this paper proposes a low cost yet efficient IoT system called FireNot for warning and alerting fire incidents. FireNot is a cloud based system that uses sensors (hardware) to detect fire and alert the user through internet and is maintained and monitored using a simple Android app. The FireNot system uses Raspberry Pi programmed through Python language and utilises Google API for location detection. The FireNot system is also intended to provide an expandable platform for additional daily monitoring tasks and more importunately, resiliency against most cyber-attacks and hi-jacking that targets IoT-based system lacked in most of similar IoT-based designs. This paper practically demonstrates the FireNot system through extensive testing on various operations and the FireNot system is proven to be efficient.

As the Internet of Things (IoT) penetrates different domains and application areas, it has recently entered also the world of robotics. Robotics constitutes a modern and fast-evolving technology, increasingly being used in industrial, commercial and domestic settings. IoT, together with the Web of Things (WoT) could provide many benefits to robotic systems. Some of the benefits of IoT in robotics have been discussed in related work. This paper moves one step further, studying the actual current use of IoT in robotics, through various real-world examples encountered through a bibliographic research. The paper also examines the potential of WoT, together with robotic systems, investigating which concepts, characteristics, architectures, hardware, software and communication methods of IoT are used in existing robotic systems, which sensors and actions are incorporated in IoT-based robots, as well as in which application areas. Finally, the current application of WoT in robotics is examined and discussed.

The number of elderly is increasing in recent years. According to the United Nations (UN), in 2050 there will be 2.1 billion people above 60 years of age worldwide. In addition, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that more than 1 billion people live with some form of disability, the leading causes of which are chronic diseases and accidents. Thus, many opportunities for the application of smart environments to support ubiquitous healthcare are emerging, the benefits of which may be reflected in reduced medical costs and increased convenience of patients and families. This systematic mapping study aims to identify how smart environments have been applied to support ubiquitous healthcare, what techniques and technologies are being used, and what research gaps are still left unexplored. Eight scientific repositories were used to search for papers in the area of ubiquitous healthcare, and a filtering process was used to remove bias. Of an initial sample of 1706 studies, 49 were reviewed entirely, analyzed, and categorized. Among these, we highlight those oriented to monitoring, detection, notification, and action on situations that may cause illnesses or promote the improvement of people’s health and wellness. Technologies to support ubiquitous healthcare were categorized into three groups: ambient sensors, wearables, and social robotics. These technologies have been applied most frequently to support the elderly and disabled. The diseases most commonly cited were dementia, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, autism, obesity, mental stress, sleep disorders, asthma, epilepsy and chronic diseases. We found only three papers that used prediction models. Finally, we observed a trend of using social robotics to improve the intelligence of ambient, aggregating mobility, and acting.

This paper argues that energy consideration should be central to software development. It speculates that including the notion of energy awareness in programming language design for domain specific languages (DSLs) is a novel way in which energy-aware and energy-efficient applications can be developed. It outlines the design criteria and rationale for using a language-focused approach for energy-awareness. It proposes Lantern, a DSL for supporting energy awareness in Cyber-Physical Systems software development. Lantern allows the development of applications that better manage and reduce the carbon footprint of devices. The design of Lantern is aimed at supporting the general development of Cyber-Physical Systems. This paper focuses on the scenario of smart homes, using statically defined locations within a specified environment.

On November 20, 2018 at 11 am, Andrés Camilo Jiménez Alvarez defended his Ph.D. thesis entitled Decentralized navigation model for multiagent cooperative robotic systems at the Distrital University Francisco José de Caldas. Andrés Camilo Jiménez Alvarez presented his dissertation in a public open event held in the “Wise Caldas Auditory”, and was able to expose and defend all his research, it was approved by the committee. The thesis was supervised by his advisors, Vicente García-Díaz and Sandro Javier Bolaños, together with the thesis committee, Rubén Gonzáles Crespo, Oscar Fernando Avilés and Roberto Ferro Escobar. All the cited people were present at the event.