The Context - Artificial Human Sensors: Science and Applications - page 37

external situations such as unhealthy compounds, and humans can avoid threat-
ening situations. One main question is how to solve the energy powering of the
system, and the specific requirements to the sensors. These systems can accord-
ing to Song (2006), be driven by converting mechanical movement energy, e.g.,
body movement, muscle stretching, blood pressure, vibration energy (e.g., acous-
tic/ultrasonic wave), and hydraulic energy (e.g., flow of body fluid, blood flow,
contraction of blood vessels), into electric energy. The energy generated may be
sufficient for self-powering and low energy devices and systems in a variety of
applications.
2.1.2 Human Involvement
The degree of human involvement in complex processes depends on the variety
of the human operator's perceptual ability, experience and earlier knowledge, i.e.,
understanding of the systems dynamics behaviour. These facts cause uncertainty
and make the symbiotic system reliable only when a rigorous control of each part's
specific perceptual ability is known and well-defined behaviours are expected in
different situations. With this follows the fact that the performance of each sys-
tem is hard to evaluate when it is expected to be in a joint relationship with other
biological/artificial systems. The involved systems also have to be effectively in-
terfaced to each other in order to communicate properly.
Complexity differs in the context of human involvement and may vary
between different operators that interact with the process. Figure 2.3 below, in-
dicates the complexity in system configuration when interfering with the human
Figure 2.3. The complexity of an acting artificial system together with human involve-
ments in a system with a degree of symbiosis.