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Engineering Smart Houses

 

In this paper the author investigates the applications of ambient intelligence technology in houses. In the first part, the definition of different terms related to the field is given. A model that categorizes  different types of smart houses is presented.

According to the model there are three types of smart houses.

  • Controllable house
  • Programmable house
  • Intelligent house

A brief description of each category is given. Author also refers to different research conducted under each category.

In the second part of the project the author provides the details of a flash animation designed to simulate a smart house.

From this paper one can conclude that each group of houses in the evolution model is better, more powerful than the previous one in the hierarchy. So, the intelligent houses that can “learn” and reprogram itself based on the home environment is considered the most advanced one. 

The abstract of the paper can be found below

 

Engineering Smart Houses

Author :Boguslaw Pilich

The Abstract

The concept of Ubiquitous Computing has over the years become more popular in research projects world wide. The technology is continuously progressing making the computing devices more powerful, of lower price and less energy consuming. As a result the computing can be introduced to different places and activities that never involved computation before.

The goal of the project is to investigate the application of Ambient  Intelligence technologies also known as Smart Houses in home environments. A large body of research into Smart Houses has been conducted by research groups from different disciplines of information
technology. As a consequence no common understanding of Smart House technology has emerged and no common terminology has been defined. In order to better understand and compare the contributions of individual projects, we have defined a taxonomy for smart houses, which focus on the aspects of who (or what) controls the Smart Houses.

The result of this investigation is in part presented by this report and in part on a website intended for an audience with a technical background. The website contains enough information to give a person with technical background a picture of Smart Houses and in particular Intelligent Houses technology.

For the purpose of the website a series of animations presenting different ambient intelligence technologies have been created. In order to facilitate the creation of such animations,we have developed a tool that provides some basic building blocks of smart house technology and a simple way of combining them. The basic set of functions and graphical objects are created in a way that allows for its reuse and easy extensions. The tool’s specification with guidance of its usage and extension capabilities have been written and placed both in the theoretical part of the thesis and on the Smart House website. Both the website and the tool is available on the attached CD.

 

Read the full paper : http://www2.imm.dtu.dk/pubdb/views/edoc_download.php/3256/pdf/imm3256.pdf

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