Smart Environments for Occupancy Sensing and Services

The term smart environment refers to a physical space enriched with sensors and computational entities that are seamlessly and invisibly interwoven. A challenge in smart environments is to identify the location of users and physical objects. A smart environment provides location-dependent services by utilizing obtained locations. In many cases, estimating location depends on received signal strength or the relative location of other sensors in the environment. Although devices employed for location detection are evolving, identification of location is still not accurate. Therefore, in addition to devices or utilized physical phenomena, algorithms that enhance the accuracy of location are important. Furthermore, other aspects of utilizing location information need to be considered: who is going to name important places and how are the name ontologies used. This chapter introduces detecting devices, algorithms that enhance accuracy, and some prototypes of smart environments. Many interesting and open research topics can be identified within the smart environment framework.