Affiliations: CLARITY: Centre for Sensor Web Technologies, School of Computer Science & Informatics, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland. E-mail: {michael.j.ogrady,gregory.ohare}@ucd.ie | School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, UK. E-mail: stefan@eecs.qmul.ac.uk
Note: [] Corresponding author.
Abstract: Agent-based systems have long been recognized as a candidate technology for delivering autonomous and autonomic behaviors; however it is only recently that their usage has been explored in a new, emerging generation of systems that involve embedding agents on computationally challenged devices. The prudent harnessing of such agents can offer software engineers additional tools in their efforts to construct and deploy innovative mobile services or to realize practical smart environments. However, documented results of comprehensive evaluations of mobile services conducted in real world environments are rare; evaluations of systems that harness the agent paradigm are almost non-existent. This paper seeks to remedy this deficiency. It is hoped that the results of this study will encourage researchers to reflect further on the potential and implications of harnessing the intelligent agent paradigm in the broad Ambient Intelligence domain, from a software engineering perspective, and as an enabler of intelligent interaction.
Keywords: Usability, embedded agents, ambient intelligence, mobile computing
