Intelligent Systems

Intelligence is generally defined as the ability to complete a task or achieve a goal in an uncertain environment. Hence, some characteristics of intelligence include adaptability, capability of self-optimization based upon some goal or goals, ability for performing selfdiagnostics and self-maintenance and the ability to learn and reason. Currently there are many systems which can play chess, perform character/image recognition, have decision-making capabilities and do control/compensation. These systems may be characterized as having some form of intelligence. The idea of intelligence has been applied to robotics and automation to enhance the applicability to a variety of problems. Some systems try to mimic human intelligence (e.g., understand speech or recognize handwriting). New technologies have advanced the field of artificial intelligence including faster computational power, new algorithms based upon cognitive science, better sensors and smaller devices requiring less power. The field of intelligent systems has also advanced because of the integration of several disciplines in neuro-computing, evolutionary computing, probabilistic algorithms, fuzzy, neural architectures and machine learning techniques. Research progressed from simple symbolic manipulation to information fusion, syntactic onthologies, smart multiagents, information re-use and embedded intelligent systems.