A Survey of Ambient Intelligence

Abstract

Ambient Intelligence (AmI) is the application and embedding of artificial intelligence into everyday environments to seamlessly provide assistive and predictive support in a multitude of scenarios via an invisible user interface. These can be as diverse as autonomous vehicles, smart homes, industrial settings, and healthcare facilities—referred to as Ambient Assistive Living. This survey gives an overview of the field; defines key terms; discusses social, cultural, and ethical issues; and outlines the state of the art in AmI technology, and where opportunities for further research exist. We guide the reader through AmI from its inception more than 20 years ago, focussing on the important topics and research achievements of the past 10 years since the last major survey, before finally detailing the most recents research trends and forecasting where this technology is likely to develop. This survey covers domains, use cases, scenarios, and datasets; cultural concerns and usability issues; security, privacy, and ethics; interaction and recognition; prediction and intelligence; and hardware, infrastructure, and mobile devices. This survey serves as an introduction for researchers and the technical layperson into the topic of AmI and identifies notable opportunities for further research.