In this paper, we present an integrated system concept for the living assistance domain based on ambient intelligence technology and discuss the resulting challenges for the software engineering discipline. Automated living assistance systems represent a promising approach for the prolongation of an independent and self-conducted life of handicapped and elderly people thereby, enhancing their quality of life and minimizing the need for manual social/medical care. It is demonstrated that living assistance systems must realize flexibility and adaptability at the algorithmic, architectural and human interface level to an extent unknown in present systems. The construction of robust, trustworthy living assistance systems is an extremely challenging task and requires novel approaches for dependable self-adapting software architectures, resource efficiency, and self-adapting multi-modal human-computer interfaces. The resulting consequences and challenges for the discipline of software engineering are outlined in this paper.

In the current society, where the group of elderly and people with disabilities is constantly growing, especially due to the increase in life expectancy, it is becoming a must for ICT developers to provide systems that meet the needs of this community regarding accessibility and usability and enhance their quality of life consequently. Ambient Assisted Living, intended to help people live independently, with autonomy and security, is one of the most promising solutions that are coming up to address this technological challenge. This paper presents the approach proposed in the context of VAALID European funded project to make possible real rapid prototyping of accessible and usable Ambient Intelligence solutions, by integrating Virtual Reality simulation tools in the development cycle as well as appropriate user interfaces. The first functional prototype has been planned for March 2010 and will be evaluated during six months in three pilot sites with up to 50 users, starting on May 2010.

The population of elderly people is increasing rapidly, which becomes a predominant aspect of our societies. As such, solutions both efficacious and cost-effective need to be sought to provide services required by an ever increasing number of users. Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) is a new approach which promises to address the needs of elderly people. Ambient Intelligence technologies are widely developed in this domain aiming to construct safe environments around assisted peoples and help them maintain independent living. However, there are still many fundamental issues in AAL that remain open. Most of the current efforts still do not fully express the power of the human being, while the importance of social connections and social activities is less noticed. Our conjecture is that such features are fundamental prerequisites towards truly effective AAL services. In this chapter, we firstly review the current status of researches on AAL, discuss the promises and possible benefits, while also indicating the challenges we must meet in order to develop practical and efficient AAL systems for elderly people. Afterwards we propose an approach to construct effective home-care systems for elderly people. We use service oriented architecture (SOA) to orchestrate the available resources inside the community, organizing services from both human side and assistive