Simulation of alternative self-organization models for an adaptive environment

The ambient intelligence scenario depicts electronic environments that are sensitive and responsive to the presence of people. The paper deals with a particular kind of system whose aim is to enhance the everyday experience of people moving inside the related physical environment according to the narrative description of a designer's desiderata. In this kind of situation computer simulation represents a useful way to envision the behaviour of the responsive environments modeled and implemented, without actually bringing them into existence in the real world, in order to evaluate their adherence to the designer's specification. This paper describes the simulation of an adaptive illumination facility, a physical environment endowed with a set of sensors that perceive the presence of humans (or other entities such as dogs, bicycles, cars) and interact with a set of actuators (lights) that coordinate their state to adapt the ambient illumination to the presence and behaviours of its users. The simulation system is used to compare two different selforganization models managing the adaptive illumination system.