Page - 18 - in Intelligent Environments 2019 - Workshop Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Intelligent Environments

In this paper, we attempted to address this research gap by proposing an evaluation framework for IE methodologies. The framework has been defined through studying, abstracting and unifying systems engineering lifecycle models as well as considering best practices from systems engineering (SE) [13]. The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 discusses the engineering challenges for IEs, Section 3 explains the rationale for choosing systems engineering, Section 4 presents our proposed framework, Section 5 describes application of the User-Centred Intelligent Environments Development Process (UC-IEDP) to build a smart irrigation system, Section 6 reports on an initial evaluation of UC-IEDP against the evaluation framework and Section 7 highlights the study limitations. The paper is concluded in Section 8 with some directions for current and future work respectively. 2. Background IEs emphasize developing systems that incorporate both a smart environment and ambient intelligence and are based on the ubiquitous availability of services that will enhance occupants’ experiences [2]. Accordingly, every IE should be able to satisfy certain basic design goals [2]. IE projects are inherently complex; both from a technical and management perspective. Moreover, according to a landmark study carried by [12], the development of intelligent systems poses a number of challenges as a result of increasing complexity. While these systems are often multidisciplinary, they require involvement of diverse stakeholders during the entire systems development process. Therefore, it is imperative to have proper communication and cooperation beyond the limits of individual specialist disciplines. This infers that ensuring a standard system understanding represents a key challenge. Moreover, according to [20], these systems require compliance to numerous quality attributes such as robustness, availability, extensibility, safety, security, timeliness and efficiency. This further reinforces careful management of systems requirements during the systems development process and beyond. IEs also consist of numerous components or sub-systems interfacing with each other. Only complete control over the interfaces enables successful system integration. The increased interactions and interfaces between the individual components further enhances the design complexity of the overarching system to deliver the emergent effect that each individual component cannot provide on its own. To this end, human machine interfaces are also of particular concerns. In [22], the author asserts that testing alone is not sufficient for these systems due to their complexity level and the consequences of their failure. As a result, integration of suitable verification and validation methods is critical for truly dependable systems. As such, system architecting and engineering tools must be adopted to manage the level of complexity in these types of systems. 3. Why Systems Engineering? According to the International Council on SE [16], “Systems Engineering is an interdisciplinary approach and means to enable the realization of successful systems ... Systems Engineering considers both the business and the technical needs of all customers with the goal of providing a quality product that meets the user needs.” This implies that SE addresses both the system to be developed and the associated project [12]. It is A.Santokheeetal. /TowardsaGeneralFramework forEvaluating IEs’Methodologies18