Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER ONE
THE BACKGROUND
The word “sense” comprises the feeling of sensing the world. The perceptive
view is complex, thus giving the user a remarkable possibility to register the close
proximity in that part of the world they are acting and interacting with. The
advantage of entering an expressive description of a new and emerging scientific
field of artificial and perceptual sensor systems, is indeed a challenge that predicts
an enormous scientific potential. Furthermore, to merge these systems to inter-
act with an individual and its perception is an even more sophisticated task, at
least if the ambition is to make a “true” symbiotic relationship between the sys-
tem and its user. The general development strategy of a new technology system
covering many traditional disciplines is naturally complicated to get a common
understanding. Therefore, the requirements are focused on a convincing concept
that has an illustrative view, which can be demonstrated through experiments and
be easily described. The background application scenarios will hopefully view
the benefits and show sufficient results in recognition of a number of situations
described, that may be interpolated with the reader's own experience in similar
situations. The merging of ideas given in this topic, together with the reader's
own experience, have hopefully the right mixture of innovative and constructive
solutions that may forward the development of artificial human sensors in a new
and unforeseen direction to the benefit of the user.
Human sensing is part of a perception process that is based on the fact that
huge flow of information is constantly appearing in our proximity. In actual fact,
most of the data is, however, not perceived and further considered as getting aware
of it. We are living in a world with an overflow of information, of which a vast
majority is considered to be unaware and therefore is not processed further.
To summarise this philosophical introduction, we are living in a world without
much perception of what is happening around us, but we are still able to momen-
tarily act on the sensations we are able to recognise and become aware of.
1.1
INTRODUCTION
The human perception is recognised as a well-adapted system that has emerged
from the requirements and adaptations built upon generations of experience that
