Carlos F. Pfeiffer

A Review of Smart House Analysis Methods for Assisting Older People Living Alone

Smart Houses are a prominent field of research referring to environments adapted to assist people in their everyday life. Older people and people with disabilities would benefit the most from the use of Smart Houses because they provide the opportunity for them to stay in their home for as long as possible. In this review, the developments achieved in the field of Smart Houses for the last 16 years are described. The concept of Smart Houses, the most used analysis methods, and current challenges in Smart Houses are presented. A brief introduction of the analysis methods is given, and their implementation is also reported.

Selection Methodology of Energy Consumption Model Based on Data Envelopment Analysis

Abstract The energy efficiency monitoring methods in industry are based on statistical modeling of energy consumption. In the present paper, the widely used method of energy efficiency monitoring “Monitoring and Targeting systems” has been considered, highlighting one of the most important issues — selection of the proper mathematical model of energy consumption. The paper gives a list of different models that can be applied in the corresponding systems. The numbers of criteria that estimate certain characteristics of the mathematical model are represented. The traditional criteria of model adequacy and the “additional” criteria, which allow estimating the model characteristics more precisely, are proposed for choosing the mathematical model of energy consumption in “Monitoring and Targeting systems”. In order to provide the comparison of different models by several criteria simultaneously, an approach based on Data Envelopment Analysis is proposed. Such approach allows providing a more accurate and reliable energy efficiency monitoring.

Calculation of electrical energy balances of production systems based on probabilistic-statistical approach

The paper analyzes well-known methods of calculation of electrical energy balances on enterprises. The drawbacks of these methods under conditions of fuzzy and incomplete initial information are shown. In order to obtain more reliable electrical energy balances under such conditions a new probabilistic-statistical approach is proposed. The method uses a hierarchical principle of obtaining electrical energy balances with two levels: electrical energy balances by types of products and electrical energy balances by technological equipment, which are involved in production processes of each type of products. Advisability of application regression analysis for calculation electrical energy balances on the first level is considered. The methods proposed for calculation electrical energy balances on the second level include expert survey, simulation, probabilistic-statistical methods and optimization techniques.

Monitoring of energy efficiency in industry based on statistical approaches

The paper is devoted to the issue of energy efficiency monitoring in industry. The drawbacks of well-known statistical method based on Monitoring and Targeting systems are considered. An improved procedure of energy efficiency monitoring for industrial objects has been proposed. Appropriate procedure is based on the statistical modelling of energy consumption, including confidence intervals of mathematical models and Shewhart control charts.

A Discrete Event Oriented Framework for a Smart House Behavior Monitor System

A discrete event oriented framework to build a system to automatically monitor the behavior of people living alone, and assist them in case of accidents or abnormal situations, is proposed. The system can acquire information through cameras and other sensors (movement, temperature, humidity and sound sensors among others). The images from the cameras are automatically analyzed to get information about the status of the person, defined by his location inside the house, his position, and the intensity of movement. The images are not permanently stored, nor available for viewing, in order to protect the privacy of the person being monitored. The cameras and other sensors can also be used to get information about the room status (the number of persons in it, the status of windows, doors, lights and other appliances, the room temperature and humidity, etc.) Additional sensors can also be used to get external status information, such as outside temperature and weather conditions. All the information is mapped to discrete set variables that can take a reduced number of values. These variables are used to define the state of the system, activities, and behaviors. This information can be used to build behavior models to characterize the person normal behavior during a training period, and later use this characterization to detect atypical behaviors.