Operating system characteristics for ambient intelligent systems

Ambient Intelligence (AmI) includes a broad variety of new applications based on distributed, embedded, intelligent user interface, and mobile com-munication technologies. This new paradigm of information technologies requires new types of functional supports provided by Operating Systems (OSes). These include scalability, modularity, mobility support, various user interfaces, power management, hardware control, etc. Due to the variety of characteristics required in AmI systems, the selection of the appropriate OS is not a trivial task. In this report, we present an overview of existing operating systems and relate their key characteristics to the typical requirements of AmI systems. In our analysis we focused on easily attainable operating systems and strived at supporting the everyday selection task that developers of AmI systems face. As no OS fully covers the range of characteristics required by AmI systems, the development of a new OS and a product line of OSes is still a challenging issue.