REFLECT · Responsive Flexible Collaborating Ambient

We are currently standing on the brink of a new era of computing systems: Moving on from desktop computers, computing intelligence will be woven into the fabric of everyday life", seamlessly and near-invisibly pervading our environment, sensing our presence, mood, and intentions, thus delivering services adapted to ourselves and our context of use.<br/><br/>The REFLECT project aims at developing new concepts and means for such "pervasive-adaptive systems". To begin with, REFLECT researches ways of sensing users and their mood and intentions. Different aspects are taken into account: emotional state (e.g. annoyance), cognitive engagement (e.g. high mental workload) and physical conditions and actions (e.g. temperature and movement). All these together with human behavioural patterns form the personal awareness of the system. Additionally, information about the surroundings is gathered and used to establish environmental awareness.<br/><br/>Augmenting these results, REFLECT investigates ways of realizing pervasive-adaptive environments. A software framework with a set of practical tools is developed which can be used for building pervasive, adaptable, self-organized systems that seamlessly collaborate with users and control their environments. <br/><br/>The resulting REFLECT system will be able to derive, suggest and perform actions to optimize user comfort and performance, assisting people in their specific activities (for example, in driving a vehicle). To illustrate the pragmatic orientation and results, the REFLECT project includes a number of case studies and a prototype from the automotive domain that shows how such systems can be deployed in practice.<br/>"