1 Overview and Challenges of Ambient Systems, Towards a Constructivist Approach to their Modelling Gérald Rocher, Jean-Yves Tigli, Stéphane Lavirotte, and Nhan Le Thanh Abstract—From a closed and controlled environment, neglect- a researcher at the Media-lab, is already wondering about ing all the external disturbances, information processing systems the consequences of such an evolution (objects that think, are now exposed to the complexity and the aleas of the physical [3]). In 1998, largely inspired by Mark Weiser’s work, Eli environment, open and uncontrolled. Indeed, as envisioned by Mark Weiser as early as 1991, the progresses made on wireless Zelkha introduced the concept of Ambient Intelligence (AmI) communications, energy storage and the miniaturization of com- [4] which aims to bring together the computer resources puter components, made it possible the fusion of the physical embedded on everyday objects to assist people in their daily and digital worlds. This fusion is embodied in a set of concepts activities. In 1999, Kevin Ashton adopted the term Internet of such as Internet of Things, Pervasive Computing, Ubiquitous Things (IoT) [5] which reflects the integration of the physical Computing, etc. From a synthesis of these different concepts, we show that beyond the simple collection of environmental world into the Internet through sensors spread throughout data from sensors, the purpose of the information processing our environments. In a broad sense, the notion of “things” systems underlying these concepts is to carry out relevant actions (e.g., house, building, garden, etc.) goes well beyond that that the processing of these data suggests in our environment. of “objects” (e.g., chair, watch, lamp, etc.). The concept of However, due to the complexity of these systems and the inability connected object then appeared in order to characterize the to predict the effects of their actions, the responsibility for these actions still often remains with users. Mark Weiser’s vision of everyday objects connected to this network. disappearing computing is still far from being a reality. This In the early 2000s, the term Pervasive Computing was intro- situation calls for an epistemological rupture that is proposed duced. Taking up the key ideas of ubiquitous computing as to be concretized through the systemic approach which finds stated by Mark Weiser, both concepts are used interchangeably its foundations in constructivism. It is no longer a question of 1 predicting but of evaluating in vivo the effectiveness of these [6]. In 2002, the notion of “Disappearing Computing” , very systems. The perspectives for such an approach are discussed. similar to that of “Calm technology”, appeared as part of an initiative of the European Commission (Future and Emerging Index Terms—Pervasive Computing, Ubiquitous Computing, Internet of Things, Cyber-Physical Systems, Ambient Intelligence, Technologies, FET). Systemic Approach, Effectiveness Assessment In 2006, Helen Gill (National Science Foundation) introduced the term Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) [7] which generalizes I. Introduction the concept of embedded systems to that of connected objects with the objective of coordinating them with physical pro- At the end of the 1980s, Mark Weiser laid the foundations cesses [8]. Since 2007, CPSs have been a national priority of Ubiquitous Computing, which he theorized in 1991 in his in the United States2. Just as the Internet has profoundly article “The Computer for the 21st century” [1]. This paradigm arXiv:2001.09770v1 [cs.CY] 9 Jan 2020 transformed the way humans interact with each other, CPSs consists in embedding computer resources on everyday objects will transform the way they interact with the physical world and, even before the advent of the Internet, already suggestsa [8]. form of omnipresent network. In 1995, with John Seely Brown, In 2008, mainly due to the explosion of mobile devices he pushed the concept to its limits by introducing the notion of (phones, tablets, etc.), there are more connected objects than Calm technology [2] whose founding idea can already be found people on earth3. Dominique Guinard laid the foundations of in his 1991 seminal article: “The most profound technologies the Web of Things (WoT) [9] which integrates the objects at are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric the application layer of the OSI model. It is then possible to of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it”. The use a common interface to access objects (e.g., RESTful web idea of disappearance, here, is as much physical as cognitive. services, Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP), Message Queue Telemetry Protocol (MQTT), etc.), to compose appli- From the mid-1990s onwards, this vision was technologically cations based on connected objects, etc. feasible thanks to the advent of mobile telephony and the Since then, many concepts have emerged, often promoted by progress it had made possible in terms of miniaturization industries or even states that have understood the eminently of electronic components and wireless communication. At strategic dimension of these technologies. In particular, in the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Hiroshi Ishii, 1http://www.disappearing-computer.org G. Rocher, JY. Tigli, S. Lavirotte and N. Le Thanh where with the University 2https://www.nsf.gov/geo/geo-data-policies/pcast-nit-final.pdf Côte d’Azur and CNRS, I3S laboratory, Sophia-Antipolis, France 3https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en_us/about/ac79/docs/innov/IoT_IBSG_0411FINAL.pdf 2 early 2010’s, Cisco™ introduced the concept of the Internet of Direct, etc.). The objective, while not exhaustive, is to identify Everything (IoE) which, beyond Machine-to-Machine (M2M) a trend. communications, encompasses technology assisted People-to- People (P2P) communications and Machine-to-People (M2P) communications (via, for instance, social networks or other digital media). In line with CPS, the concepts of Industrial ActivitiesofDailyLiving HumanActivities Internet of Things (IIoT) [10] and Industry 4.0 [11], by their FaceRecognition highly strategic dimension, are gaining some momentum and, SpeechRecognition GestureRecognition within the European Union, widely developed in Germany. ActivityRecognition This brief historical overview highlights a number of concepts AccidentPrevention HomeAutomation that characterize the fusion of the physical and digital worlds, Robotics prophesied by Mark Weiser as early as 1991. So as to clarify WebServices MultimediaServices the picture, we provide, in the first part of this paper, a Education synthesis of the main concepts (§II). Without claiming to Teaching be exhaustive, this synthesis makes it possible to clarify E-Learning SustainableDevelopment their particularities and overlaps in terms of application and Agriculture scientific research areas. Vehicles Forecasting It results from the synthesis (§II-F) that the information SocialNetworking AugmentedReality processing systems underlying these concepts have in common VirtualReality that their purposes are achieved in the physical environment FactoryAutomation through actions effecting some of its properties. This common Manufacture Industry4.0 denominator brings them together under the term ambient Healthcare systems. This semantics is justified by the general system Monitoring theory [12] which defines an ambient environment by all the ElderlyPeople AmbientAssistedLiving external factors which, by acting on certain properties of a IntelligentBuilding physical system, determine its evolution. SmartSpace SmartHome By interacting with the physical environment, these systems SmartCity SmartGrid inherit its complexity. This complexity is also driven by their EnergyUtilization infrastructure and the rationality of their decisions. These ele- EnergyEfficiency ments are detailed in §III. They justify an observation resulting from the synthesis : since their effects are unpredictable, (1) responsibility for actions is often left to users, (2) otherwise, IOT AmI there are risks to individuals and their environment. Mark CPS Weiser’s vision of disappearing computing is still far from Pervasive being a reality. Ubiquitous This situation calls for an epistemological rupture that we Fig. 1: Application domains associated with the concepts (each propose to concretize through the systemic approach whose row sums to 100%). methodology is presented in §IV. Without claiming to predict, the proposed approach makes it possible to evaluate in vivo The methodology chosen consists in determining all the the effectiveness of these systems. keywords associated with articles published over the period To conclude (§V), we introduce some perspectives that the 1989-2019 relating to the various concepts, and classifying evaluation of the effectiveness can bring to these systems. them according to their frequency of appearance (1989 being the year from which the term Ubiquitous Computing was II. Thematic classification introduced). Scopus® queries are given in the table I. It is worth setting up a methodological framework which, In the sequel, the different concepts are analysed on the basis without claiming for exhaustiveness, makes it possible to of these keywords (Denoted by keyword). The figure 1 depicts study the particularities and the commonalities of the main the main application domains associated with each of the concepts highlighted in terms of application and research concepts. The figure 3 shows a synthesis of the most common areas, namely “Internet of Things”, “Ubiquitous Computing”,