Smart environment

Last updated
Smart City Graz Strassenbahn Smart City.jpg
Smart City

Smart environments link computers and other smart devices to everyday settings and tasks. Smart environments include smart homes, smart cities, and smart manufacturing.

Contents

Introduction

Smart environments are an extension of pervasive computing. According to Mark Weiser, pervasive computing promotes the idea of a world that is connected to sensors and computers. [1] These sensors and computers are integrated with everyday objects in peoples' lives and are connected through networks. [1]

Smart Home Vivint SmartHome Arena (3).jpg
Smart Home

Definition

Cook and Das, define a smart environment as "a small world where different kinds of smart devices are continuously working to make inhabitants' lives more comfortable." [2] Smart environments aim to satisfy the experience of individuals from every environment, by replacing hazardous work, physical labor, and repetitive tasks with automated agents. Poslad [3] differentiates three different kinds of smart environments for systems, services, and devices: virtual (or distributed) computing environments, physical environments, and human environments, or a hybrid combination of these:

Features

Smart environments encompass a range of features and services across various domains, including smart homes, smart cities, smart health, and smart factories. Some of the key features of smart environments are:

Sensors and Actuators: Smart environments are equipped with an assembly of sensors and actuators that collect data and initiate actions to provide services for the betterment of human life. [6] [7]

Interconnected Systems: These environments consist of interconnected systems that enable seamless communication and coordination among various devices and components. [8]

Data-Driven Technologies: Smart environments leverage data-driven technologies, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), to obtain information from the physical world, process it, and perform actions accordingly. [8]

Efficiency and Sustainability: They are designed to improve efficiency, sustainable practices, and resource management across different settings, such as energy efficiency in smart homes and environmental quality management in smart cities. [6]

Diverse Requirements: Different types of smart environments have diverse requirements and technology choices, influencing the processing and utilization of data within a specific environment. [9]

Technologies

Building a smart environment involves technologies of

  1. Wireless communication
  2. Algorithm design, signal prediction & classification, information theory
  3. Multilayered software architecture, Corba, middleware
  4. Speech recognition
  5. Image processing, image recognition
  6. Sensors design, calibration, motion detection, temperature, pressure sensors, accelerometers
  7. Semantic Web and knowledge graphs
  8. Adaptive control, Kalman filters
  9. Computer networking
  10. Parallel processing
  11. Operating systems

Existing projects

The Aware Home Research Initiative at Georgia Tech "is devoted to the multidisciplinary exploration of emerging technologies and services based in the home" and was launched in 1998 as one of the first "living laboratories." [10] The Mav Home (Managing an Adaptive Versatile Home) project, at UT Arlington, is a smart environment-lab with state-of-the-art algorithms and protocols used to provide a customized, personal environment to the users of this space. The Mav Home project, in addition to providing a safe environment, wants to reduce the energy consumption of the inhabitants. [11] Other projects include House at the MIT Media Lab and many others.

See also

Related Research Articles

Ubiquitous computing is a concept in software engineering, hardware engineering and computer science where computing is made to appear anytime and everywhere. In contrast to desktop computing, ubiquitous computing can occur using any device, in any location, and in any format. A user interacts with the computer, which can exist in many different forms, including laptop computers, tablets, smart phones and terminals in everyday objects such as a refrigerator or a pair of glasses. The underlying technologies to support ubiquitous computing include Internet, advanced middleware, operating system, mobile code, sensors, microprocessors, new I/O and user interfaces, computer networks, mobile protocols, location and positioning, and new materials.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Smart device</span> Type of electronic device

A smart device is an electronic device, generally connected to other devices or networks via different wireless protocols that can operate to some extent interactively and autonomously. Several notable types of smart devices are smartphones, smart speakers, smart cars, smart thermostats, smart doorbells, smart locks, smart refrigerators, phablets and tablets, smartwatches, smart bands, smart keychains, smart glasses, and many others. The term can also refer to a device that exhibits some properties of ubiquitous computing, including—although not necessarily—machine learning.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mobile device</span> Small, hand-held computing device

A mobile device, also referred to as a digital assistant, is a computer small enough to hold and operate in the hand. Mobile devices typically have a flat LCD or OLED screen, a touchscreen interface, and digital or physical buttons. They may also have a physical keyboard. Many mobile devices can connect to the Internet and connect with other devices, such as car entertainment systems or headsets, via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cellular networks, or near-field communication. Integrated cameras, the ability to place and receive voice and video telephone calls, video games, and Global Positioning System (GPS) capabilities are common. Power is typically provided by a lithium-ion battery. Mobile devices may run mobile operating systems that allow third-party applications to be installed and run.

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) refer to networks of spatially dispersed and dedicated sensors that monitor and record the physical conditions of the environment and forward the collected data to a central location. WSNs can measure environmental conditions such as temperature, sound, pollution levels, humidity and wind.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ambient intelligence</span>

Ambient intelligence (AmI) is a term used in computing to refer to electronic environments that are sensitive to the presence of people. The term is generally applied to consumer electronics, telecommunications, and computing.

Intelligent Environments (IE) are spaces with embedded systems and information and communication technologies creating interactive spaces that bring computation into the physical world and enhance occupants experiences. "Intelligent environments are spaces in which computation is seamlessly used to enhance ordinary activity. One of the driving forces behind the emerging interest in highly interactive environments is to make computers not only genuine user-friendly but also essentially invisible to the user".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edge computing</span> Distributed computing paradigm

Edge computing is a distributed computing model that brings computation and data storage closer to the sources of data, so that a user of a cloud application is likely to be physically closer to a server than if all servers were in one place. This is meant to make applications faster. More broadly, it refers to any design that pushes computation physically closer to a user, so as to reduce the latency compared to when an application runs on a single data centre. In the extreme case, this may simply refer to client-side computing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Smart transducer</span>

A smart transducer is an analog or digital transducer, actuator or sensor combined with a processing unit and a communication interface.

The Internet of things (IoT) describes devices with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other communications networks. The Internet of things encompasses electronics, communication, and computer science engineering. "Internet of things" has been considered a misnomer because devices do not need to be connected to the public internet; they only need to be connected to a network and be individually addressable.

Activity recognition aims to recognize the actions and goals of one or more agents from a series of observations on the agents' actions and the environmental conditions. Since the 1980s, this research field has captured the attention of several computer science communities due to its strength in providing personalized support for many different applications and its connection to many different fields of study such as medicine, human-computer interaction, or sociology.

A smart object is an object that enhances the interaction with not only people but also with other smart objects. Also known as smart connected products or smart connected things (SCoT), they are products, assets and other things embedded with processors, sensors, software and connectivity that allow data to be exchanged between the product and its environment, manufacturer, operator/user, and other products and systems. Connectivity also enables some capabilities of the product to exist outside the physical device, in what is known as the product cloud. The data collected from these products can be then analyzed to inform decision-making, enable operational efficiencies and continuously improve the performance of the product.

Cyber–Physical System (CPS) are integrations of computation with physical processes. In cyber–physical systems, physical and software components are deeply intertwined, able to operate on different spatial and temporal scales, exhibit multiple and distinct behavioral modalities, and interact with each other in ways that change with context. CPS involves transdisciplinary approaches, merging theory of cybernetics, mechatronics, design and process science. The process control is often referred to as embedded systems. In embedded systems, the emphasis tends to be more on the computational elements, and less on an intense link between the computational and physical elements. CPS is also similar to the Internet of Things (IoT), sharing the same basic architecture; nevertheless, CPS presents a higher combination and coordination between physical and computational elements.

Urban computing is an interdisciplinary field which pertains to the study and application of computing technology in urban areas. This involves the application of wireless networks, sensors, computational power, and data to improve the quality of densely populated areas. Urban computing is the technological framework for smart cities.

The Telecooperation Office (TECO) is a research group at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Karlsruhe, Germany. The research group is in the Institute of Telematics, and is attached to the chair for Pervasive Computing Systems, currently held by Michael Beigl.

A transreality game, sometimes written as trans-reality game, describes a type of video game or a mode of gameplay that combines playing a game in a virtual environment with game-related, physical experiences in the real world and vice versa. In this approach a player evolves and moves seamlessly through various physical and virtual stages, brought together in one unified game space. Alongside the rising trend of gamification, the application of game mechanics to tasks that are not traditionally associated with play, a transreality approach to gaming incorporates mechanics that extend over time and space, effectively playing through a players day-to-day interactions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Subsea Internet of Things</span>

Subsea Internet of Things (SIoT) is a network of smart, wireless sensors and smart devices configured to provide actionable operational intelligence such as performance, condition and diagnostic information. It is coined from the term The Internet of Things (IoT). Unlike IoT, SIoT focuses on subsea communication through the water and the water-air boundary. SIoT systems are based around smart, wireless devices incorporating Seatooth radio and Seatooth Hybrid technologies. SIoT systems incorporate standard sensors including temperature, pressure, flow, vibration, corrosion and video. Processed information is shared among nearby wireless sensor nodes. SIoT systems are used for environmental monitoring, oil & gas production control and optimisation and subsea asset integrity management. Some features of IoT's share similar characteristics to cloud computing. There is also a recent increase of interest looking at the integration of IoT and cloud computing. Subsea cloud computing is an architecture design to provide an efficient means of SIoT systems to manage large data sets. It is an adaption of cloud computing frameworks to meet the needs of the underwater environment. Similarly to fog computing or edge computing, critical focus remains at the edge. Algorithms are used to interrogate the data set for information which is used to optimise production.

Morten Kyng is a Danish computer science researcher and author. He is a member of Association of Computing Machinery's Computer-Human Interaction Academy member. He is a ubiquitous computing professor at Aarhus University. He is a Member of Board of Directors of Østjysk Innovation and the Director of the Centre for Pervasive Healthcare, a research centre that studies the use of pervasive computer technologies to provide healthcare solutions.

The Internet of Military Things (IoMT) is a class of Internet of things for combat operations and warfare. It is a complex network of interconnected entities, or "things", in the military domain that continually communicate with each other to coordinate, learn, and interact with the physical environment to accomplish a broad range of activities in a more efficient and informed manner. The concept of IoMT is largely driven by the idea that future military battles will be dominated by machine intelligence and cyber warfare and will likely take place in urban environments. By creating a miniature ecosystem of smart technology capable of distilling sensory information and autonomously governing multiple tasks at once, the IoMT is conceptually designed to offload much of the physical and mental burden that warfighters encounter in a combat setting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moustafa Youssef</span> Egyptian computer scientist

Moustafa Youssef is an Egyptian computer scientist who was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 2019 for contributions to wireless location tracking technologies and a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) in 2019 for contributions to location tracking algorithms. He is the first and only ACM Fellow in the Middle East and Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spatial computing</span> Extended reality and related technologies

Spatial computing is any of various human–computer interaction techniques that are perceived by users as taking place in the real world, in and around their natural bodies and physical environments, instead of constrained to and perceptually behind computer screens. This concept inverts the long-standing practice of teaching people to interact with computers in digital environments, and instead teaches computers to better understand and interact with people more naturally in the human world. This concept overlaps with others including extended reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, natural user interface, contextual computing, affective computing, and ubiquitous computing. The usage for labeling and discussing these adjacent technologies is imprecise.

References

  1. 1 2 "The origins of ubiquitous computing research at PARC in the late 1980s" (PDF). 1999.
  2. Cook, Diane; Das, Sajal (2005). Smart Environments: Technology, Protocols and Applications. Wiley-Interscience. ISBN   0-471-54448-5.
  3. Poslad, Stefan (2009). Ubiquitous Computing Smart Devices, Smart Environments and Smart Interaction. Wiley. ISBN   978-0-470-03560-3.
  4. Rousselle, P.; Tymann, P.; Hariri, S.; Fox, G. (1994). "The virtual computing environment". Proceedings of 3rd IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Distributed Computing. IEEE Comput. Soc. Press. pp. 7–14. doi:10.1109/HPDC.1994.340265. ISBN   978-0-8186-6395-6.
  5. McKenna, H. (2020-04-27). "Human-Smart Environment Interactions in Smart Cities: Exploring Dimensionalities of Smartness". Future Internet. 12 (5): 79. doi: 10.3390/fi12050079 . ISSN   1999-5903.
  6. 1 2 Gomez, Carles; Chessa, Stefano; Fleury, Anthony; Roussos, George; Preuveneers, Davy (2019-01-30). "Internet of Things for enabling smart environments: A technology-centric perspective". Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Smart Environments. 11 (1): 23–43. doi:10.3233/AIS-180509. hdl: 2117/127793 .
  7. Khosrow-Pour, D.B.A., Mehdi, ed. (2018). Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology, Fourth Edition. IGI Global. doi:10.4018/978-1-5225-2255-3. hdl:2299/27236. ISBN   978-1-5225-2255-3.
  8. 1 2 "ScienceDirect Ad". Chaos, Solitons & Fractals. 15 (5): II. March 2003. doi:10.1016/s0960-0779(02)00434-4 (inactive 2024-04-04). ISSN   0960-0779.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of April 2024 (link)
  9. "Smart cities: a nexus for open innovation?", Smart Cities, Routledge, pp. 123–145, 2013-08-22, doi:10.4324/9780203076224-16 (inactive 2024-04-04), retrieved 2024-04-03{{citation}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of April 2024 (link)
  10. "Aware Home About US". 2007. Archived from the original on 2008-03-15.
  11. "MavHome". 2004. Archived from the original on 2005-09-13.