Agents in domestic environments Leo van Moergestel, Wouter Langerak, Glenn Meerstra, Niels van Nieuwenburg, Franc Pape, Dani¨ el Telgen and Erik Puik HU Utrecht University of Applied Sciences Utrecht, the Netherlands Email:leo.vanmoergestel@hu.nl John-Jules Meyer Utrecht University Utrecht, the Netherlands Email: J.J.C.Meyer@uu.nl Abstract—This paper describes an agent-based architecture for domotics. This architecture is based on requirements about expandability and hardware independence. The heart of the system is a multi-agent system. This system is distributed over several platforms to open the possibility to tie the agents directly to the actuators, sensors and devices involved. This way a level of abstraction is created and all intelligence of the system as a whole is related to the agents involved. A proof of concept has been built and functions as expected. By implementing real and simulated devices and an easy to use graphical interface, all kind of compositions can be studied using this platform. I. I NTRODUCTION Our research group focuses on the applications of agent technology. An interesting application field for agent technol- ogy is domotics. Domotics is also called home automation and it is a field within building automation. Though building au- tomation focuses normally on big buildings where people come together for work, education, shopping, recovering, sporting or having a meeting, domotics is specializing in the specific automation requirements of private homes. The application of automation techniques is meant for the comfort and security of its residents. Domotics applies many techniques used in building automation such as light and climate control, control of doors and window shutters, security and surveillance sys- tems, etc. but additional features are used in domotics. These additional functions in home automation include the control of multi-media home entertainment systems, automatic plant watering and pet feeding, and automatic scenes for dinners and parties [1]. Additional features are also security and adaptation of the system to the behaviour of the inhabitants. An important difference between building automation and home automation is, however, the human interface. In home automation, the control of the system is not done by highly trained technical people as is the case in building automation. Because the control should be done by the home inhabitants the control should be easy, largely image-based and self- explanatory. Home automation could use wireless techniques, but nor- mally a wired infrastructure is used. A wired infrastructure is a bit more reliable and when home automation is installed during construction of a new home, usually control wires can be added without much extra work. In standard automation systems these control wires run to a controller, which will then control the environment. However, in practice home automation is often added after the home has been built and even then it should be easily adaptable in the future when new opportunities and techniques become available. In automation there is a trend towards more intelligent devices and a distributed approach for the system as a whole. In the next sections at first we focus on domotics and its characteristics. In this section also the goal of the research project is explained resulting in system requirements. Next, the design of the system is discussed. In that section hardware and software platforms are introduced. The system architecture is explained in a separate section that will be followed by the implementation, the results and a of course a discussion about related work and a comparison of our work with other research in the field of domotics. II. CHARACTERISTICS OF DOMOTICS In this section we first discuss domotics and its levels and global architectures. Next the formulation for the goals of our system will be introduced as well as the global system requirements. A. Domotics Home-automation is sometimes used as a synonym for do- motics, but Harper [2] describes five levels of home automation and states that only level four and five apply to domotics [3]. The five levels are: 1) Homes containing stand-alone intelligent objects; 2) Houses containing intelligent communicating objects. In this case a performance gain can be achieved by sharing information between the objects; 3) Homes that communicate by themselves. In this case internal and external data communication networks open the possibilities to remote control and monitor- ing; 4) Learning homes; activity patterns are recognized and applied to optimize the technology in house; 5) Attentive homes; the activity and location of peo- ple and objects within the homes are constantly registered, and this information is used to control technology in anticipation of the occupants needs. Looking at these levels we observe an increase of the amount of communication, interoperability and artificial intelligence techniques going from the first level to the highest level. Thus to open the road to the highest level, from the starting point technologies should be applied that do not obstruct this path towards higher levels. In [1] three possible architectures are described.