On the Problem of Describing Activities in Context-Aware Environments

A framework is introduced that is aimed at allowing the description of real-world situations to be recognized by context-aware applications, with a special emphasis on Ambient Intelligence(AmI) scenarios, such as Smart Homes. In particular, the Situation Description Language SDL is delineated, which allows to easily specify patters of activities and events which occurrences must be assessed using information originating from distributed devices. As long as sensory observations are available, symbolic information is first aggregated and then classified according to formulas described in SDL. Examples grounded with respect to a real-world Smart Home environment are presented and discussed.