Intelligent software - quite simply

"In reality, intelligent embedded software is simply what we used to call embedded software. Intelligent has become a trendy concept that is used indiscriminately. There's no such thing as "unintelligent embedded software." The opposite of intel-ligent embedded software is simply electronics - and that's not so simple after all."

Vice director of CISS, associate professor Henrik Schiøler, quickly embarks on an explanation of what it is possible to do with simple electronics - and where exactly intelligent embedded software makes a difference.

All digital electronics make use of binary signals - that is, ones and zeros - in order to express themselves and communicate. Binary signals are good for logic - for instance concepts such as 'and', 'or' and 'not'. By establishing connections between so-called logical gates, it is possible to get a quite sophisticated result from simple electronics - it just takes enough electronics," Henrik Schiøler points out and explains how washing machines have used simple electronics - in the form of sensors - for measuring whether the laundry is clean enough to end the machine washing.

Small processor - large effect

"The next step is the Von Neumann machine, which is the prototype of a computer. Among other things, it distinguishes itself from simple electronics by having a memory and by being able to run what you might call a "bookkeeping system". If we were to shrink the Von Neumann computer so that it could be placed inside a processor, we will have taken the first step towards intelligence. Now, all we need to do is program it to solve problems for us," Henrik Schiøler explains.

Even though it is possible to solve almost all kinds of problems using simple electronics, there are still certain obvious advantages to using 'the bookkeeping machine', the intelligent processor:

"It's capacity is larger, the price is often smaller - and a processor like that often takes up less space than the simple electronics - if we need to solve more complex and varied problems. So you might say that what characterises the situations in whihc we use the concept of intelligence is that the systems are capable of solving more complex tasks, in addition to them being easily adapted/programmed to other tasks," Henrik Schiøler explains.