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…