Agency, ambience, assistance : a framework for practical AAL

Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) is a societal imperative in many countries due to their aged demographic profile. Ambient Intelligence (AmI) offers a viable and intuitive framework by which such systems may realised in practice. However, a number of issues must be addressed if AmI is to become sufficiently mature and robust to support AAL. One such issue is the seamless combination of services, based on a diverse range of embedded artifacts, such that AAL systems can be rapidly designed, implemented and deployed. This paper considers, albeit briefly, issues pertaining to the design of an intelligent middleware solution for the provision of AAL services.