The field of "intelligent interfaces and systems" has witnessed a rapid growth during the last decade of the 20th century. An impressive number of papers, conference tutorials, and volumes have been devoted to the topic. In 1990, intelligent systems constituted a rather exotic topic and many were skeptical as to whether such systems would amount to more than a nice name. Nowadays, intelligent systems represent a powerful tool in many applications, in all industrial fields. Their development evolved on both the horizontal dimension, with a constantly increasing number of applications, and on the vertical dimension, by including more capabilities ranging from sensoric to neurofuzzy systems, intelligent agents, speech and image understanding, and decision-making in complex environments. Representing a comprehensive coverage of the field of intelligent systems and interfaces, this text includes information about fundamental aspects, software-, sensors-, and hardware-related issues.Moreover, the contributors to this volume offer, beyond a systematic overview of intelligent interfaces and systems, deep, practical knowledge in building and using intelligent systems in various applications. Special emphasis is placed on specific aspects and requirements in applications. The text is a tool for the scientific community in all areas of applied intelligent technologies. The chapters are written by a selected pool of experts in the field of intelligent systems. The contributors thoroughly review the state of the art, explain the problems to be addressed and show how these problems can be solved. Extensive references are included, offering the reader a perspective on the currently available literature and trends.
