CSAIL Event Calendar

Sensor Networks for Better Buildings

Humans are dynamic and adaptive. If our buildings are to be truly human-centered then they must be sensitive to our changing needs. Sensor networks enable that reality in an economical and scalable way that balances the social need for efficiency and productivity with the human need for privacy. This talk will provide an overview of the major effort underway at MERL to explore this possible future. We have collected almost a year of data from our facility using over 200 wireless motion sensors. The wireless sensors were created at MERL, and their design was shaped by years of experience with the preceding sensor systems. The data we have collected has informed our work on models of human behavior that work well at the scale of a building. The sensor modality, combined with these models, enable us to perform efficient behavior-based mining and searching on building-scale databases. We have explored applications of those technologies toward improving building security, efficiency, and productivity.

Bio:
Dr. Christopher R. Wren is a Research Scientist at the fundamental research arm of the Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories in Cambridge, MA, USA. His work on perception is targeted at improving human-system interactions. His current research focus centers on the perceptual problems associated with sensor networks, specifically perceiving and modeling the behavior of populations of people in buildings. Prior to joining MERL, he was a member of the Vision and Modeling Group at the MIT Media Laboratory where he developed real-time vision systems to understand individual human behavior. Dr. Wren has also worked in interface, graphics, haptics and simulation.

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