The Technological Area of Ambient Intelligence has two clearly distinguished objectives.

On one hand, it aims to follow the evolution of ambient intelligence (AmI) from the theoretical point of view, noting any new concepts that appear in the many fields of application. At present, its activity is focussed on the development of the AAL concept (Ambient Assisted Living), which is understood to be the application of the AmI model to prolonging the time that the elderly can live independently at home. This objective also includes the way in which AmI applications are developed from the user’s point of view (technological invisibility, ease of use, intuitive systems) and the study of the ethical implications involved.

The second of the main lines of action is the development of the technology pertaining to ambient intelligence, understood as the creation of reference architectures, distributive systems integration platforms, and tools for the integration of massively distributed devices in people’s physical surroundings.

From the technological point of view, this knowledge area works in close coordination with the rest of the technological areas of the TSB group, both contributing to the development of applications in these areas and receiving technological services from them: knowledge management tools, software platforms, intelligent systems, short and medium range wireless communications, and mobile systems. All of these play a key role in the development of the AmI concept, so that the principal activity is technological integration, bearing in mind the reference architectures necessary to construct an ambient intelligence system that will be really useful to people.