Affordances in an Ecology of Physically Embedded Intelligent Systems

The concept of Ecology of Physically Embedded Intelligent Systems, or Peis-Ecology, combines insights fromthe fields of autonomous robotics and ambient intelligence to provide a new solution to building intelligent robotic systems in the service of people. The concept of PEIS-Ecology also offers an interesting setting to study the applicability of Gibson's notion of affordances to an ecology of robots. In this paper we introduce this concept, and discuss its potential and implications both from an application point of view and from an ecological (Gibsonian) point of view. We also discuss some new scientific challenges introduced by a Peis-Ecology, present our current steps toward its realization, and point at a few experimental results that show the viability of this concept.

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