M.-S. Hacid et al. (Eds.): ISMIS 2005, LNAI 3488, pp. 404 – 412, 2005. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005 Agent-Based Home Simulation and Control B. De Carolis, G. Cozzolongo, S. Pizzutilo, and V.L. Plantamura Dipartimento di Informatica -Università di Bari http://www.di.uniba.it/intint Abstract. In this paper, we propose an approach to the simulation of control of an intelligent home aiming at understanding which is the impact of embedded and pervasive technology on people daily life. In this vision, the house is seen as an intelligent environment made up of independent and distributed devices interacting to support user’s goals and tasks. Achieving this aim requires giving, to these intelligent artifacts, an appropriate level of autonomy, distribution, ad- aptation, proactiveness, etc. Therefore, in some way, they share the same char- acteristics as agents. C@sa is a multiagent system aiming at modeling, control- ling and simulating house behavior according to user and context features. 1 Introduction Home Automation aims at handling the house control and management from several viewpoints (appliances, security, communications, comfort, …) with the main objec- tive of making the life of inhabitants easier. Most of the time, solutions to this prob- lem result in using new complex remote controls or new computer-based interfaces. Currently, houses are being networked, bringing the internet to the home and al- lowing new services. In the future home environment, the user will be overwhelmed by a multitude of devices with complex capabilities, different access network inter- faces and different multimedia and control services. Introducing new visible technol- ogy does not always produce an improvement of the quality of interaction. Then, to change this trend, making home automation systems more accepted and spread through different user categories, the challenge is to create environments in which technology is present but invisible to users, as in Weiser’s vision [1]. Ambient Intelligence (AmI) solutions, in which the interaction become pervasive and more natural, may help in making the house services fruition easy, natural and adapted to the user needs [2]. In the AmI information technology paradigm, people interact with a “real-digital” environment that is aware of their presence and of the context in which they are interacting. The environment perceives people presence, adapts and answers in a proactive manner to their needs, habits, emotional states, etc.. In this vision, people will be surrounded by intelligent and intuitive interfaces embed- ded into objects of daily use that will be able to recognize them and to react to their presence in a transparent way. Then, an AmI environment is composed of independ- ent and distributed devices (artifacts) interacting to support user-centered goals and tasks. The key characteristics of these intelligent artifacts are autonomy, distribution, adaptation, proactiveness, etc: therefore, in a way, they share the characteristics of