Formal Modeling Techniques for Ambient Assisted Living

Abstract

In the development of systems of ambient assisted living (AAL), formalized models and analysis techniques can provide a ground that makes development amenable to a systematic approach. We consider the following formal modeling tools and techniques: fault trees, evidential reasoning, evidential ontology networks, temporal logic, hidden Markov models and partially observable Markov models. We review them in the perspective of their potential in the realm of AAL, recalling the general traits and potential of each of them, and highlighting how this can be concretely deployed within the AAL realm. To this end, we present a number of scenarios providing insight on how each technique can match the needs of different types of problem in the application domain.