A Smarter Smart Home: Case Studies of Ambient Intelligence
This week I learnt that I (and co-author Lyn Bartram and Fred Popowich) will have a paper appearing in a future issue of IEEE Pervasive Computing (vol 12, no 1). Here is the paper abstract:
Research has shown that small changes in behaviour in how we use our homes can result in substantial energy and water savings. Home automation and the integration of computational intelligence capabilities in the “smart home” are often cited as promising advances in the design and renovation of efficient buildings. However, the design and implementation of such technologies are largely based on energy use simulations, smart automation of the building systems and components for optimal performance rather than on effectively supporting how people use their homes. Additional factors including system complexity and awkward automation can discourage acceptance of smart home technologies. In this paper we propose that technological support for sustainable home use lies in more subtle and contextually appropriate interventions that integrate more informative models of occupant behaviour, provide hybrid levels of automated control, and use ambient sensing for localized decisions. We discuss several cases from our experience in designing sustainable home systems and describe two current design cases for ambient intelligence in home control.
Keywords: Smart Home, Ambient Intelligence; Adaptive Lighting; Circadian Rhythms; Adaptive HVAC.
You can find a PDF of the paper at http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/MPRV.2012.58
Keep your eyes peeled as there are a number of other submissions that I am either waiting on review or in the midst of writing. Write on…
Home Occupancy Agent: Occupancy and Sleep Detection
Earlier this month I learnt that I (and co-author Fred Popowich) will have my first journal paper published in the GSTF Journal on Computing in the April/2012 edition (vol 2, no 1). Here is the paper abstract:
Smart homes of the future will have a number of different types of sensors. What types of sensors and how they will be used depends on the behaviour needed from the smart home. Using the sensors to automatically determine if a home is occupied can lead to a wide range of benefits. For example, it could trigger a change in the thermostat setting to save money, or even a change in security monitoring systems. Our prototype Home Occupancy Agent (HOA), which we present in this paper, uses a rule based system that monitors power consumption from meters and ambient light sensor readings in order to determine occupancy. The agent is also able to determine when the occupants are asleep, and thus provide the potential for further energy saving opportunities.
Keywords: Smart Home, Intelligent Agent, Occupancy Detection, Power Consumption, Ambient Light Sensors, Sleep Detection, Energy Conservation, Sustainability.
Keep your eyes peeled as there are a number of other submissions that I am either waiting on review or in the midst of writing. Write on…
Related articles
- The Affect of Lifestyle Factors on Eco-Visualization Design (eco-sustain.org)
The Affect of Lifestyle Factors on Eco-Visualization Design
On Monday I learnt that my full co-authored (with Maryam H Kashani and Lyn Bartram) paper “The Affect of Lifestyle Factors on Eco-Visualization Design” was accepted at Computer Graphics International (CGI 2012). So I will be travelling to Bournemouth University in the UK. Here is the paper abstract:
As people become more concerned with the need to conserve their power consumption we need to find ways to inform them of how electricity is being consumed within the home. There are a number of devices that have been designed using different forms, sizes, and technologies. We are interested in large ambient displays that can be read at a glance and from a distance as informative art. However, from these objectives come a number of questions that need to be explored and answered. To what degree might lifestyle factors influence the design of eco-visualizations? To answer this we need to ask how people with varying lifestyle factors perceive the utility of such devices and their placement within a home. We explore these questions by creating four ambient display prototypes. We take our prototypes and subject them to a user study to gain insight as to the questions posed above. This paper discusses our prototypes in detail and the results and findings of our user study.
Keywords: eco-visualization, informative art, ambient display, power consumption, energy conservation, sustainability.
CGI 2012 received 178 papers, 111 were rejected, 35 were selected for the CGI 2012 Special Issue of The Visual Computer, 32 were selected for the Electronic Proceedings.
I will be updating the Elements of Consumption (EoC) project page soon. I plan to be releasing the project source code as an open source project along with details on how to create your own custom ambient display.
