HORUS: an Agent System for Home Automation.

This paper presents a system for home automation, called HORUS, which is based on an agent architecture. The benefits deriving from this type of solution are essentially three. Firstly, the agent paradigm provides a good abstraction mechanism for implementing a modular system, easy to configure according to the requirements of a specific application. The second reason is the possibility of scaling up to complex applications exploiting parallel and distributed computing on low power micro-pc. The third reason is load balancing and fault tolerance. When required, the agents migrate from one host to another providing fault tolerance and load balancing capabilities. Some agents are provided with learning capabilities and can learn the model on the environment where they operate. Finally, the agents communicate in xml over https and are integrated in a web environment which offers an ubiquitous access from any kind of portable device, while providing a secure access. HORUS is now a commercial product, which provides either a sophisticated anti-intrusion system, and energy control.