New Publications are available for Automated buildings
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New Publications are available now online for this publication.
Please follow the links to view the publication.The design of wireless remote intelligent home system based on zigbee and GPRS
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp.2011.0756
Intelligent home is an important application of wireless sensor network. This paper introduces a remote wireless acquisition and control system based on Zigbee and GPRS. The system is a star network and includes environment monitoring sensors, intelligent appliances, terminal acquisition and control nodes, family gateway and data display platform. This system is low cost, low power consumption, more flexible to deploy and the coverage is very large. The whole system not only can acquisition the environmental data and display them, but also can remotely query and control, the experiment show a good remote alarm and control ability. The control system includes manually control mode and automatically control mode. This paper introduces the composition and structure of the system, design of hardware and software are also described. In the design process, the energy efficiency has been focused on.Single agents in smart grids
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp.2010.0907
This paper aims to present the development of Single Agents for the energy management of electric energy sources including PVs in buildings from the one hand and acheiving the implementation of Demand Side Management strategies on the other. Actions of electric utilities by TSOs/DSOs could influence the amount or timing of customers' energy demand, in order to utilize scarce electric supply resources more efficiently. Using Smart Metering, consumers receive signals that reflect the actual price of electricity, which fluctuates in response to supply and demand. A Single Agent Thermal Model-Based Predictive controller is developed implementing super cooling/heating strategies, through which a building or a building part is pre-cooled/pre-heated during low peak periods achieving peak shaving in an acceptable way by the users regarding the thermal comfort issue. A pilot application of Single Agents is implemented in a building in Greece, and the results are analysed and presented. (9 pages)Challenges and opportunities for intelligent buildings in the 21st Century: an energy focus
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/ic.2009.0222
Intelligent buildings should be sustainable, healthy, technologically aware, meet the needs of occupants and business, and should be flexible and adaptable to deal with change. This means the processes of design, construction, commissioning and facilities management including post occupancy evaluation are all equally important. Buildings comprise many systems devised by many people and yet the relationship between buildings and people can only work satisfactorily if there is integrated team with a holistic vision. The address will discuss some trends in the design and management of intelligent buildings for this century. (86 pages)Study on monitor system of heating ventilation air conditioning based on LonWorks technology
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp.2009.1517
Air conditionings take major energy consumption in intelligent buildings. And now, with deep research and widely application of building automation technology and air conditioning control technology, indoor air conditioning is going from a single refrigeration system to a multifunctional system such as changes in temperature, low noise, energy saving and environmental protection. Lon Works is a famous kind of fieldbus because of its open and interoperability. Its characteristics of neuron chip makes developing LonWorks devices much easy. In this paper, monitoring system of heating ventilation air conditioning (HVAC) based on LonWorks and KingView is studied. At first, a LonWorks control network for HVAC is built up. The iLON6OO Lon Works/IP server is used to connect LonWorks devices with PC. Secondly, LonWorks node is designed. Three modes are adopted for HVAC. Afterward, monitoring software based on KingView is completed on PC. The experimental results validate the feasibility of the proposed control system and its application of actual engineering. (5 pages)A conflict resolution architecture for the comfort of occupants in intelligent office
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20081135
Improving energy efficiency in intelligent buildings is an important issue in reducing global warming. Real smart energy efficiency is a combination of energy saving and providing for the satisfaction of occupants. However, the comfort of occupants has an uncertainty in prediction and can conflict with preferences of other occupants. So the "Conflict Resolution Architecture" (CRA) is introduced in this paper to solve the conflict among occupants using the integration of RFID systems and sensor network systems. A CRA consists of two control systems that are applied to two separate types of locations. One is the central rule- based control system in a public zone and the other is the individual utility-based control system in a private zone. Two methods that consist of a priority approach and a privilege-average approach are suggested for the CRA control. Then a CRA is able to make conflict resolution among occupants in an intelligent office. (8 pages)Design of underlying network infrastructure of smart buildings
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20081123
Wireless Building Management Systems (BMS) are an attractive option when it comes to building retrofitting due to the cost constraints introduced by wired systems. A crucial part of the wireless BMS is the initial planning stage, this process can be impossible for a designer to undertake, therefore highlighting the requirement for a software design tool to aid in this process. (4 pages)Attributing events to individuals in multi-inhabitant environments
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20081164
Intelligent environment research has resulted in many useful tools such as activity recognition, prediction, and automation. However, most of these techniques have been applied in the context of a single resident. A current looming issue for intelligent environment systems is performing these same techniques when multiple residents are present in the environment. In this paper we investigate the problem of attributing sensor events to individuals in a multi-resident intelligent environment. Specifically, we use a naive Bayesian classifier to identify the resident responsible for a unique sensor event. We present results of experimental validation in a real intelligent workplace testbed and discuss the unique issues that arise in addressing this challenging problem. (8 pages)Using multiple personas in service robots to improve exploration strategies when mapping new environments
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20081144
In this paper we describe our work on geometrical and perception models for service robots that will support people living in future Digital Homes. We present a model that captures descriptions of both the physical and perceptual environment space. We present a summary of experimental results that show that these models are well suited to support service robot navigation in complex domestic worlds, such as digital homes. Finally, by way of introducing some of our current, but unpublished, research we present some ideas from philosophy and psychoanalytic studies which we use to speculate on the possibility of extending this model to include representations of persistent experiences in the form of multiple personas which we hypothesize might be applied to improve the performance of services robots by providing a mechanism to vary the balance of current and past experiences in control decisions which appear to serve people well. (5 pages)Hierarchical recognition of activities of daily living using multi-scale, multi-perspective vision and RFID
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20081157
Research on computer-based recognition of ordinary household activities of daily living (ADLs) has been spurred by the need for technology to support care of the elderly in the home environment. We address the issue of recognizing ADLs at multiple levels of detail by combining multi-view computer vision and radio-frequency identification (RFID)-based direct sensors. Multiple places in our smart home testbed are covered by distributed synchronized cameras with different imaging resolutions. Learning object appearance models without costly manual labeling is achieved by applying the RFID sensing. A hierarchical recognition scheme is proposed by building a dynamic Bayesian network (DBN) that encompasses both coarse-level and fine-level ADL recognition. Advantages of the proposed approach include robust segmentation of objects, view-independent tracking and representation of objects and persons in 3D space, efficient handling of occlusion, and the recognition of human activity at both a coarse and fine level of detail. (4 pages)Communication failures in the speech-based control of smart home systems
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20070358
Despite their basic attractiveness as an interaction paradigm for controlling intelligent environments, the design of spoken dialog systems for this purpose raises some usability challenges that require careful attention. This paper examines closely the communication failures that can occur in the control of one particular type of intelligent environment: a smart home system that provides control for multiple domestic devices through a state-of-the-art mixed-initiative spoken-dialog interface. The 24 participants completed several tasks with the INSPIRE system in a controlled experiment, and interaction failures were categorized with an error taxonomy that is related to more general error taxonomies but specialized to this class of systems. Despite efforts devoted to supporting natural, mixed-initiative dialog and to the prevention of communication failures, over one fourth of user utterances were problematic, often leading to stagnation or regression. The causes and consequences of these problems are discussed, along with their implications for the design of spoken dialog systems for intelligent environments.Using the modular controller architecture (MCA) in ambient assisted living
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20070400
The concept of ambient intelligence requires software architectures enabling machine intelligence in unstructured dynamic environments. Research in mobile robotics tries to address this field since many years and has successfully created several architectural concepts for behavior-based reactive systems. We describe the architectural and communication-oriented capabilities of the modular controller architecture (MCA) and how ambient intelligence systems may benefit from these. Especially the shared memory approach of MCA offers a great possibility to facilitate distributed dynamic applications. MCA has been developed for mobile robotics research, initially at the FZI in Karlsruhe (K.U. Scholl et al., 2001) and is under continuous development. MCA addresses primitive and object-related communication, re-usability, component-based development, hardware access and application distribution. We want to take a closer look on the MCA framework and how it is already in use within an assisted living environment, established during several projects at Fraunhofer IESE (J. Nehmer et al., 2006) (M. Becker et al., 2007). Several sensors and a mobile service unit were provided by the Robotics Research Lab and the MCA framework was used for service interconnection. An intelligent refrigerator, two human localisation technologies and the mobile service robot ARTOS have MCA running as described in section 3. We present our experiences with the modular controller architecture regarding the parameters identified by the ubiquitous community (M. Weiser, 1991). The outline of this paper is as follows: first the architectural approaches in other projects are mentioned. The modular controller architecture is described in detail, with focus on the requirements of ambient intelligence. We continue by describing our assisted living demonstrator and the services and applications relevant to this work. With reference to our example implementation we conclude the features of MCA that comply to the requirements. Furthermore it is described which future work shall lead to addons and concepts to overcome certain weaknesses in the current system architecture.Programming the smart home
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20070424
A smart home is a house that is responsive to its inhabitants and their actions by being aware of their context. Potential applications for smart homes address economic and comfort aspects of living, or could provide unobtrusive support for the elderly or disabled to promote independent living. The basic building blocks of such a smart home is a computing system consisting of distributed sensors and actuators. Programming and maintaining such an infrastructure is challenging because suitable programming abstractions are currently missing. In this paper we introduce the notion of programmable space that lets the application developer perceive the smart home as an integrated runtime environment. This approach is implemented in a system called RuleCaster. Applications are developed in a high-level rule- based language. Our approach shows a notable simplification of application development and maintenance. To verify the utility of RuleCaster we use a scenario-based evaluation method.Natural language processor for user driven free speech voice interaction in multimodal smart environments
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20060644
The aim of the paper is to introduce a natural language processor enabling mobile multimodal interfaces to receive user driven free speech in order to enable more natural voice interaction with mobile applications and services to control devices in smart environments. Free speech of users is continuously analysed and matched against semantically defined device service commands. The concept and requirements of the language processor and the semantic description for application commands will be explained. Further the paper elaborates on how this concept was fitted into the general concept of a mobile multimodal interface and elaborates on implementation aspects of the language processor. The feasibility of the approach has been shown in a prototypical implementation. The work has been carried out as part of the research on mobile multimodal interfaces within the IST-FP6 MobiLife project. First order or main headings should commence at the left hand margin of each column, and should be in capitals and can be in bold. Except at the top of a new column the first order heading should be preceded by two lines of space and followed by two lines of space. (9 pages)An approach towards personalized user interfaces for ambient intelligent home environments
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20060649
Today's consumer devices are equipped with an enormous number of functions controllable by the user. Therefore, an efficient menu structure is of high interest. Nowadays each device uses its own user interface along with appropriate menu structures. As a result, different devices from different vendors are typically equipped with diverse menu structures and layouts even if they actually have similar functionalities. Thus, the user is typically confronted with inhomogeneous menu structures forcing one to learn the logic behind each structure first, before an efficient interaction with the interface is possible. This paper discusses a novel approach of interaction-structure generation, which represents the first results of our work done within the user interaction oriented task of the EU-IST funded research project Amigo. Further, this work is also based on results we gained out of our inHaus-project. In this work we present an innovative concept for a personalized graphical user interface for AmI (Aml=ambient intelligence) home environments. Functionalities of different devices and software components are bound into one operation concept to give the user the feeling of interacting with one solid system and not with a loosely coupled set of single devices. Therefore, the binding between device and functionality has been removed and device independent menu structures have been introduced. Links between devices and functionalities are only maintained for the sake of execution. The core idea of the presented approach is to automatically provide a consistent interface throughout different environments. This is reached by adapting structure and presentation to personal user preferences. These adaptations help the user to operate unknown AmI environments efficiently and as intuitively as possible. (9 pages)Design issues in personalizing intelligent buildings
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20060636
This paper concerns the personalization of intelligent buildings, where intelligence of a building is considered in a broad sense, not confined to the computational aspects. Personalization is desired in order to give the individual greater representation in the building and for energy consumption/well-being balance in the context of measuring building intelligent quotient. The paper examines problems of programming in pervasive space, and current systems for personalization. It discusses design issues relating to human representation in the building, active and passive human participation, the nature of the personal agent, ownership and location, transparency, and norm-based agency. A design based upon active involvement of the occupant is presented. (7 pages)Housing senses - design by daylight
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20060675
With this research the author prove that the involvement of other disciplines with architecture, and in this specific project, the daylighting and the material science, can lead to new design solutions and new typologies of leaving. This research is a starting point for the involvement of disciplines with architecture and can be expanded to other sciences as sound engineering, psychology and ergonomics in order to create more intelligent habitable environments. (8 pages)Sensible node: network-based general purpose architecture module that reflects environment
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20060693
In this paper we propose a network-based architecture module that reflects the environment; which is called "sensible node". The aim of this module is to offer the comfort and spiritual richness; not convenience that is stereotypically sought in space utilization with computing. Also, the module has considerable flexibility that enables designers to construct the space, the integrated space of real and information, with single or multiple modules linked up together. This brings you unconventional and free designs of context aware system based on multi network which differs from traditional one-on-one pair model or server client model. In this paper, lastly we introduce two application examples as the basic module of sensible node and as the module group. (10 pages)Sweet intelligent home - user evaluations of MIMOSA housing usage scenarios
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20060673
This paper presents and analyses the results of the MIMOSA project's first user evaluation activities, the scenario evaluations carried out in summer 2004. The scenarios covered five different application fields: everyday, sports, fitness, health care and housing. In this paper the author concentrates on housing scenarios which were evaluated by VTT in Finland and by Legrand in France. According to the evaluation results the main challenge with housing systems is co-operation with existing house information systems. The users are not carrying their mobile phones with them at home, so the mobile phone centric system has to be based on the mobile phone connecting to the existing house network. Preventing problems (water leaks, unwanted visitors etc.) is one of the main positive effects that the potential users of a new technology valued. Extensive automation of home system raised fears but also advantages were noticed particularly for certain user groups. (10 pages)Models for the relief of extreme events: functional fluctuation and optimum typologies for the built environment
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20060712
The following paper concentrates on examining the built fabric under extreme events. The definition of the extreme within the built environment is analyzed and models for the relief of the phenomenon are considered. The aim is to examine the fluctuations created by the event and to create models of appeasement and design typologies which intent on the imminent relief of the crisis. Theories, such as complexity, self organization, emergence, swarm intelligence, catastrophe theory, bifurcations, networks and systems theories are applied in order to find optimum ways of designing. Generative and evolutionary design, parametric design, is explored. The methodology followed is by simulating (pedestrian movement) the facts and finding optimum design solution. (6 pages)Intra-family communication needs; how can awareness systems provide support?
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20060682
This paper presents the concept of ambient awareness that pertains to using ambient intelligence technologies for the purposes of sustaining awareness between individuals or groups of people, over sustained periods of time. The first explorations of this concept are conducted within the context of supporting awareness for busy parents having young children. We sketch the requirements drawn from an interview study, involving 20 interviews with working parents and we identify unmet communication needs that this type of technology may support. (6 pages)Applying psychoanalytic and neuro-scientific models to automation
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20060632
Project ARS (artificial recognition system) researches the future possibilities for building automation using bionic approaches. It focuses on the combination of bottom-up data processing systems with decision making inspired by modern psychoanalysis. We define a model based on a symbol processing unit and a decision unit implementing Sigmund Freud's ego-superego-id personality model, emotions and drives. This paper describes the basic principles of decision making and the complete connection down to sensors level, it shows some of the challenges in the process and first steps of implementing a prototype system. (8 pages)Augmenting interaction in intelligent environments through open personal memories
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20060668
One of the human strengths is to utilize past experiences to solve problems. This process can be technically supported by collecting and exploiting the history of a user's interactions with an intelligent environment. However, most of today's applications cannot or do not take on the additional burden of providing the user with sophisticated memory functionality. In this paper we present the concept of an open personal memory, which allows arbitrary applications to contribute knowledge to the memory with minimal extra effort. We describe a proof-of-concept implementation and show how users can exploit such memories. (10 pages)Tele-contiguity and interaction: architecture as communication interface
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20060690
This paper is centered on the use of video-communication and tele-collaborative applications in temporary architecture. Today we live in an electronic society in which computers, mobile phones, Internet have become integral part of our everyday lives. Architecture has to interject the new space characteristics: fluxes and interrelations should become the goal of research. This approach has three significant characteristics: unification of real and virtual worlds both input and output, tele-contiguity between remote participants, convergence of amplified perceptions and sensible spaces. Tele-contiguity is superintended as an improvement of body materiality through sensory amplification and not as an impoverishment of human sensory system: the system should support an environment that looks like a natural and functional extension of the space that people use in their everyday activities. (5 pages)Supporting emotional communication between multiple users in intelligent home environments
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20060623
In this paper a concept is presented, that supports awareness and emotional communication between family members, distributed over multiple intelligent home environments. A technical communication infrastructure is presented, which allows connecting different types of input and output devices. This platform is extended by several examples of emotional user interfaces, which address the individual needs of different user groups. (10 pages)ZUMA: a platform for smart-home environments
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20060624
Although electronic devices permeate the home and offer unsurpassed power and features, many impediments still exist to realizing the concept of the smart-home: configuration complexity, minimal device interoperability, difficulty of use, lack of personalization, and no integration with sensors for awareness and adaptation. We define four tenets of smart-home environment: zero-configuration, universality, multi-user optimality, and adaptability (ZUMA), and describe a platform based on a set of clean abstractions for users, content, and devices. The platform enables configuration and organization of content and networked heterogeneous devices in a smart-home environment. We validate the platform with a prototype implementation and analyze its flexibility and infrastructure requirements. (10 pages)Universal modular kit for temporal interactive place in public spaces
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20060671
This paper introduces a novel way to enable users to create temporal smart surroundings easily at open-air events. The final goal of this research was to support social activities in public spaces, such as festivals, camps, and outdoor-ceremonies with ubiquitous computing technologies. We designed and developed universal modular units called "I/O-CRATEs", which are box-shaped units embedded with microcomputers, sensors, actuators, and batteries. We demonstrated the possibilities of our units with a one-night special event. Through this practical experience, we found "I/O-CRATEs" could easily be used to create smart and enjoyable surroundings in many places. (9 pages)An agent interaction protocol for ambient intelligence
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20060652
We propose in this paper a model for agent-based devices enhanced with reasoning and interactive features. More precisely, we present an interaction protocol that enables agents to answer received messages, according not only to their functionalities, but also to their role in the interaction they are involved into. This interaction protocol aims at making it possible for agents associated to physical appliances to dialogue and compose their functionalities so as to respond to a user requirement without any prior knowledge about other agents. (10 pages)Exploring kinesthetic spatial experiences in the 'active room'
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20060703
This paper is a very brief summary of a research project which explores, through design and precedent survey, the potential of kinetic architecture to augment our kinesthetic experience of space. The term 'kinetic' here, refers to mechanical and actual motion of the structure which results to changes and modifications of the shape, form and position of the architecture. This research project regards kinetic architecture to be part of the wider context of interactive architecture and discusses issues of spatial experience through the design of an interactively kinetic room. (6 pages)Multi-agent fuzzy inference control system for intelligent environments using Jade
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20060653
In this paper, a novel physical testbed for intelligent environments and its software based multi-agent control system are presented. In the physical testbed, a fair amount of embedded sensors and actuators are interconnected in three types of physical networks, namely the LonWorks network, RS-485 network and IP network. Universal plug and play (UPnP) is introduced in the system architecture to provide unique control interface between high level multi-agent control system and low level devices on different physical networks. The multi-agent control system is developed on an existing agent platform, JAVA agent development framework (JADE). Fuzzy inference learning is implemented with multiple fuzzy inference agents, each models the human behaviour associated with a predefined group of devices in forms of fuzzy rules. Corresponding fuzzy logic controller agents can be initiated to provide user preferred control actions according to the fuzzy rule bases. A comparative analysis shows that our control system achieves a great improvement in both control accuracy and computational efficiency compared to other offline control systems. Online adaptive learning, automatic device group formation and advanced wireless device networks are within the scope of our system architecture. (10 pages)The potential of using computer vision systems in intelligent interactive buildings
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20060711
This paper discusses the potential of using computer vision systems to determine the usage of architectural spaces with the assistant of cameras. It describes a motion analysis system and explores how this functionality can be used by intelligent spaces to interact with the users in short-term, long-term or periodically, or to assess their usability. (8 pages)AMEC - facilitating a user centred evolution to ambient intelligent environments
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20060679
As digital technologies become increasingly pervasive, we might find ourselves living with almost invisible, intelligent interactive systems - an 'ambient intelligence' - that forms a part of our everyday existence and ecology. The implications of this development are far reaching for individuals, businesses and communities. Ambient intelligence could lead to great opportunities. But as with all new technologies, we know that the technology itself is neither good nor bad. It is how we might use it that makes the difference. The main challenge at this moment is to guarantee that the new ambient intelligence technologies are appropriate, sustainable and meet people's individual and social needs. The AMEC project explores how an ambient ecology of products, services and content that is adaptive and intuitive to use can support domestic life in the connected home of the future. (7 pages)Seamless integration of output devices in intelligent environments: infrastructure, strategies and implementation
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20060621
We present a novel software infrastructure for the seamless integration of heterogeneous output devices into intelligent environments. It dynamically coordinates the output devices to enable adaptive, multimedia presentations by taking the availability of resources and the context of the presentation into account. In this paper we focus on three topics. We present our connecting middleware which supports ad-hoc spontaneous interactions between heterogeneous devices connected by different types of networks. We focus on the multimedia output (MMO) channel which is situated atop this middleware and which is responsible for coordinating output devices according to their self-descriptions. Then we give details about the AI planner which is used by the MMO channel to compute a solution to the presentation problem given by the presentation context. Finally, we outline our implementations for an intelligent living room scenario and point out related work. (10 pages)Spiros - a system for privacy-enhanced information representation in smart home environments
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20060651
This paper presents a novel concept for personalized privacy support on large public displays in intelligent home environments. In order to validate the conceptual approach a system called SPIROS was developed. The SPIROS system automatically adapts the information visible on public displays according to the current social situation and the individual privacy preferences of the user working at the display. (8 pages)A platform to build smart spaces controllable from mobile devices
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20060622
The current multimedia, processing and communication capabilities of mobile devices make them most suitable to act as our intermediaries with the surrounding environment. They are capable of sensing, processing, storing and communicating with the artefacts augmented with computing services (i.e. smart objects) deployed in a smart space. This paper describes a device-type, user-location and communication-means agnostic platform, namely EMI<sup xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/">2</sup>lets, which fulfils a two-fold purpose: a) it transforms our mobile devices into universal remote controllers of smart objects and b) it helps us constructing smart object ecosystems, i.e. smart spaces. (10 pages)Research of universal home gateway architecture and its functions
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20061244
This paper proposes home network, which is extension of broad band network to home and an important composing part of NGN, and home gateway, which is the core of home network. The paper analyzes architecture of universal home gateway from hardware and software architecture. Functions of universal home gateway are analyzed and researched deeply from five sides, which include access function, interconnect function, transmission function, core function and service function. (4 pages)A logical approach to home automation
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20060677
This paper describes an automated home environment comprising a varying population of different hardware and software modules, called pebbles, being controlled by a varying number of rules. The aim is to execute a number of concurrent applications and to be sure of their potential interactions in advance, in order to avoid any feature interaction. For this, all devices and applications must advertise their behaviour beforehand by code reflection. Our API for code reflection is our formally verifiable logic language, called Pushlogic, into which all the control software is eventually translated. We use a home control scenario to highlight different aspects of our logic-based control of these pebbles. (6 pages)Learning individual roles from video in a smart home
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20060625
This paper addresses learning and recognition of individual roles from video data in a smart home environment. The proposed approach is part of a framework for acquiring a high-level contextual model for human behaviour in an intelligent environment. The proposed methods for role learning and recognition are based on Bayesian models. The input is the targets and their properties generated and tracked by a robust video tracking system in the environment. The output is the roles "walking", "standing", "sitting", "interacting with table", "sleeping" for each target. A Bayesian classifier produced good results for a framewise classification of these roles, while a hidden Markov model had even better performance taking into account a priori probabilities of roles and role transitions. A support vector machine produced best classification results. The classifiers had, however, problems to distinguish ambiguous roles like "walking" and "standing" in the environment. The obtained results permit to pass to the next step in future work: learning and recognizing relations and situation. (9 pages)Ambient intelligence - knowledge representation, processing and distribution in intelligent inhabited environments
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20060678
This paper presents a work in progress conducted between British Telecom (BT) and the University of Essex. The project aims to provide a suitable component AI framework supported by a network overlay (Nexus) that enables secure knowledge distribution for use by mobile agents. This is to operate while observing the background goal of maintaining an acceptable quality of service. (9 pages)Tactile sensing in intelligent environments
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20060658
The purpose of this paper is to present the potential of tactile sensing technology in creating intelligent objects. These objects constitute active components of an intelligent environment. The creation of intelligent environments requires the use of sensing technologies that can record the interaction of objects with other objects or with human beings. These sensing technologies provide the data upon which the intelligent environment acts. Tactile sensing can be used to detect the physical interaction of human beings with objects. The application concepts presented in this paper can show how diverse objects such as a keyboard, a door mat, a refrigerator, a driver's seat, a table and a chair can create intelligent environment experiences. (5 pages)Globally distributed locally centralized architecture: an efficient and convenient architecture on home network
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20061245
Technologies currently available for home network only electronically connect devices in various forms and functions, and provide simple interaction and communication among devices. However, these technologies fail to provide mechanism for efficient and effective interoperation among devices in home network. In this paper, an architecture-globally distributed locally centralized architecture (or GDLC architecture for short) together with its middleware is represented, which can seamlessly integrate home devices and effectively interoperate devices. Moreover, it provides a good way to manage a huge amount of data. (4 pages)Designing interaction for smart environments: ambient intelligence and the disappearing computer
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20060618
In this keynote, the author presents selected visions of ambient intelligence and the disappearing computer and comment on the resulting challenges for designing interaction in future smart environments. Our approach is based on exploiting the affordances of real objects by augmenting their physical properties with the potential of computer-based support. Combining the best of both worlds requires an integration of real and virtual worlds resulting in hybrid worlds. In this approach, the computer "disappears" and is almost "invisible" but its functionality is ubiquitously available and provides new forms of interacting with information. The general comments are illustrated with examples taken from developing roomware components for cooperative buildings, project work in the EU-funded "Disappearing Computer" initiative, especially ambient displays and mobile devices in the "Ambient Agoras" project, and more recent developments for smart home environments. (6 pages)Towards the detection of temporal behavioural patterns in intelligent environments
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20060633
Ubiquitous computing applications propose new and creative solutions to every day needs. This paper addresses the issue of recognition of every day activities inside pervasive domestic environments in order to identify patterns of behaviour that can be later used to support care systems by detecting changes to those patterns. Our system uses a temporal neural-network-driven embedded agent able to work with online, real-time data from unobtrusive low-level sensors and actuators. We present experimental results that show that our agent is able to detect temporal patterns along with spatial similarity associations found in human behaviours and activities, in everyday living environments. (7 pages)ZUMA: a platform for smart-home environments - the case for infrastructure
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20060650
A wide range of disconnected communication networks is emerging in the home. Each has different functions and implementation architectures. The user experience as well as the overall functionality would be vastly enhanced if these networks could collaborate in a seamless fashion. Collaboration is challenging because it requires disparate devices and components to interoperate in a user friendly, scalable and upgradeable fashion. We conjecture that such cooperation might be most efficiently assured using a supporting infrastructure. The universal contents router (UCR) is introduced as an infrastructural component. The UCR moves the burden of connectivity away from the end devices to the system core. The paper spells out ZUMA, or functions that a UCR should support, discusses UCR architecture and presents a first-order prototype. (10 pages)The end of architecture as we know it
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20060684
Techniques developed for the automation of production do not offer an adequate basis for the development of intelligent domestic environments. In order to respond in an intelligent manner, the automated house needs to be able to recognize complex situations, which is not possible without intentionality. Thus the challenge of ubiquitous computing in the domestic environment goes far beyond the construction of appropriate interfaces or the interaction between digital and physical environments. The central issue is the conception of buildings as cognitive agents. (6 pages)A home security Zigbee network for remote monitoring application
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20061246
Security monitoring systems are popular in home automation, and Zigbee is a new industrial standard wireless sensor networks. This paper introduces an experimental home security monitoring and alarming system based on Zigbee technology, it is capable of monitoring door & window magnetic contact, smoke, gas leak, water flooding, providing simple controls such as turning off the valves, and sending the alarms to the residential area security network etc. The security alarming system is based on Zigbee chip MC13192 and low power consumption micro-controller MSP430F135. A description of the system architecture, circuit principle and the firmware flowchart is presented. The system uses a control key fob for activating and de-activating the alarm easily, supports Web interface so that user can access the system remotely to control, search or review the history record, and offers a LCD panel for simple configuration. The experimental system has been designed and its wireless communication test result shows that the Zigbee wireless network can improve the home security with low power and easy to implement solution. (4 pages)An intelligent user service architecture for networked home environments
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/cp_20060663
This paper discusses a novel architecture of intelligent user services that address the domain of networked home environments. The work described in this paper represents the central achievements of the first 1.5 years in the work package on intelligent user services within the EU-IST funded research project Amigo. The discussed service architecture consists of five distinct services that address both user- and system oriented issues in ambient intelligence (AmI) home environments. (10 pages)Building automation networks versus IT networks
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/ic_20050205
This presentation will look at the evolution of building automation network infrastructure, the potential for integration into existing IT network infrastructure, the issues to be considered, potential benefits with reference to "Open Standards", reliability and security. (12 pages)What are "safety critical functions" in an intelligent building? Who cares? Who is responsible? What are the risks?
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/ic_20050209
A risk based approach offers potential safety benefits but requires active risk management and new competences to achieve the safety goal. The concept of functional safety must be embraced if the potential safety benefits to be derived from emerging electronic technologies are to be realised. IEC 61508/EN 61508 is the key international and European standard for the safe application of complex electronic technologies and adopts a risk based approach. (34 pages)A comparison of some data-based methods for the off-line generation of fuzzy logic controllers for an intelligent building environment
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/ic_20050224
Ambient intelligence is nowadays an active research field. As a key matter of this concept, learning architectures for the control of the devices in an intelligent building must be developed, where the goal is to control the environmental via a set of devices using an intelligent agent which should work in a non-intrusive manner to satisfy the preferences of the user. Mainly, we have focused our attention over fuzzy logic controllers (FLC) for the internal structure of the agent. The main motivation for the work described in this paper is to check different alternatives selecting a suitable method for the off-line data driven automatic generation of FLCs for the agent. We have performed the experiments with real data gathered from the Essex Intelligent Dormitory. (7 pages)Project ARS - the next step towards an intelligent environment
http://dl-live.theiet.org/content/conferences/10.1049/ic_20050217
Project ARS (advanced recognition system) researches the future possibilities for building automation. Psychological models are used to deal with massive amounts of data in order to manage complex scenarios. Such a system would enable a building automation system to detect and comprehend situations that are too complex for existing solutions. This paper describes the motivation for this system, the impressive challenges and the first steps of implementing it. (8 pages)