Carlos Manuel Rodrigues Machado Autonomic Ubiquitous Computing

although many other methods and algorithms may have been used in order to bring intelligence to
autonomic actions. The ANN ability to detect patterns in a large and noisy dataset, reducing it to a
relatively small amount of data (ANN weights) and in combination with unsupervised learning,
makes it a practical and ideal solution. This thesis presented a case-study where the ANN was
trained with real data to determine the state of the lights in the home. The results have showed that
although the ANN has learnt the light usage pattern, it still fails in some situations. It has also
indicated that any autonomic action can not only be decided with the ANN and that basic statistics
must be used to introduce some certainty to the autonomic action. The method used and its results
were published in the paper [Machado et al. 2008].
The system user feedback and control is another important aspect that must be always
present in this type of systems. The user interface allows the user to understand the system, by
creating a mental model about how it works. For that reason, the system must always have some
type of visualization and manual overwrite control in order to allow the users to intervene in the
system, if necessary.
9.1 Contributions
The work presented in this thesis tackles some particular aspects in the construction of
autonomic ubiquitous systems, defining several system design requirements that need to be used
for practical implementations.
The definition of a global system structure, which can be used as a template in the design of
this type of system, is an important part because it provides an overview of the main components
and layers of the system. The identification of each block with generic inputs and dataflow helps in
the definition of those essential requirements.
Another important characteristic in the design philosophy presented in this thesis is the
concept that devices in the environment should broadcast information, i.e., the sensors and
actuators embedded in the environment, broadcast to all potential listening devices event
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