Considerations on Uncertain Spatio-temporal Reasoning in Smart Home Systems

Smart Homes are the subject of intensive research to explore different ways in which they can be used to provide home-based preventive and assistive technology to patients and other vulnerable sectors of the population like the elderly and frail. Current studies of Smart Homes are focused on the technological side (e.g., sensors and networks) but little effort has been given to what we consider is a key aspect of these kind of systems, that is their capability to intelligently monitor situations of interest and advise or act to the best interest of the home occupants. This paper investigates the importance of spatio-temporal reasoning and uncertainty reasoning in the design of Smart Homes. Accordingly a framework of applying a methodology referred as Rule-base Inference Methodology using the Evidential Reasoning in conjunction with Smart Home framework considering spatio-temporal aspects of human activities monitoring is outlined.