[EAI_Springer Innovations in Communication and Computing] Gonçalo Marques, Jagriti Saini, Maitreyee Dutta - IoT Enabled Computer-Aided Systems for Smart Buildings (2023, Springer) - libgen.li

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Gonçalo Marques • Jagriti Saini
Maitreyee Dutta
Editors
IoT Enabled
Computer-Aided
Systems for Smart Buildings
Editors
Gonçalo Marques Jagriti Saini
Technology and Management School of Department of Electronics and
Oliveira do Hospital Communication Engineering
Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra National Institute of Technical Teachers’
Oliveira do Hospital, Coimbra, Portugal Training and Research
Chandigarh, Chandigarh, India
Maitreyee Dutta
Department of Information Management
and Emerging Engineering
National Institute of Technical Teachers’
Training and Research
Chandigarh, Chandigarh, India
ISSN 2522-8595 ISSN 2522-8609 (electronic)

EAI/Springer Innovations in Communication and Computing
ISBN 978-3-031-26684-3 ISBN 978-3-031-26685-0 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26685-0
© European Alliance for Innovation 2023

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Preface
Smart buildings can improve quality of life by a considerable level. It is not just
about the comfort of having everything under control with remote controllers and
mobile-based actions; instead, smart buildings even provide an enhanced lifestyle to
elderly people, disabled patients, and children as well. There are plenty of advanced
technologies that can be used to create smart building environments. This book
focuses on the integration of IoT and computer-aided systems for the development
of smart buildings. The scope of this book includes, but is not restricted to, advanced
technologies for monitoring, energy management, protection, safety, assisted living,
and intelligent operations. It covers the wide aspects of interconnected smart ser-
vices with convenient interfacing to the end-users.
To be more precise about the content of this book, the seven chapters shed light
on the assessment, control, and management of various smart building applications.
In the first chapter entitled “Environmental Data Control in Smart Buildings: Big
Data Analysis and Existing IoT Technological Systems,” David Galán-Madruga
exhibited diverse arguments evidencing the implementation of technological tools
relying on IoT systems for managing smart buildings, which helps preserve or
improve the comfort and wellbeing of indoor occupants, to provide potential read-
ers with an informative benchmark, encompassing aspects such as the control of
thermal, security, lighting, and noise and air quality. In the second chapter entitled
“Need of Technological Interventions for Indoor Air Quality and Risk Assessment
upon Short-Term Exposure: A Futuristic Approach,” Khan et al. analyzed condi-
tions causing short-term exposure to polluted air along with the need for technologi-
cal interventions and risk assessment for better outcomes. Beucker et al. in their
chapter entitled “Climate-Neutral Districts with Decentralized Energy Production,
E-Mobility and Through the Formation of an Energy Community Exchange of
Electricity and Heat,” described various modern energy production methods in dif-
ferent types of buildings along with essential requirements and constraints in the
e-mobility application domain. Mohapatra et al. in their chapter entitled “IoT
Enabled Zero Water Wastage Smart Garden” provided experimental details of a
low-cost sensor-based soil moisture and temperature monitoring system to ensure
real-time assessment of plant health. These smart systems can further help in
v
vi Preface
controlled irrigation management for roadside plants, city park fields, and gardens.
These zero water waste gardens can be an impressive addition to smart buildings.
Another chapter entitled “IoT-Based Human Activity Recognition for Smart Living”
by Saha et al. highlighted the importance of IoT-based human activity recognition
system for smart living. The chapter provided valuable insights into general archi-
tecture, design principles, essential components, and research challenges associated
with developing a proposed IoT-based human behavior supervision system. Willets
et al. in their chapter entitled “Application of Data Mining to Support Facilities
Management in Smart Buildings” discussed data mining applications using big data
gathered from smart sensor systems that can be further utilized to support resource
conservation, energy management, and sustainability. In the last chapter entitled
“Application of Artificial Intelligence in Ambient Assisted Living to Support Elderly
People in Smart Homes,” Bastaki et al. presented valuable information on ambient
intelligence paradigms to improve healthcare services to older residents living in
care centers or independent homes. This study emphasizes the contribution of arti-
ficial intelligence, context awareness, wearable technologies, and ubiquitous/perva-
sive computing to design ambient assisted living environments.
The chapters in this book provide valuable information on the utilization of
advanced technologies for designing smart building applications. This book throws
light on challenges, opportunities, and applications of IoT and computer-aided sys-
tems to enhance human lifestyle with improved building environments. This book
may help upcoming researchers to understand the potential of emerging technolo-
gies to create smart building environments along with considerable problems in this
research area.
The editors want to thank the contributions of several insightful writers, expert
reviewers, and the supporting editorial team of European Alliance for Innovation
(EAI) and Springer to complete this book. We congratulate all the writers for their
valuable efforts in creating, submitting, and updating articles as per the reviewer
comments. Finally, we would like to extend our sincere gratitude to Eliška Vlčková
for his support in the entire book publishing process.
Oliveira do Hospital, Coimbra, Portugal Gonçalo Marques

Chandigarh, Chandigarh, India Jagriti Saini
Maitreyee Dutta
List of Reviewers
Editors want to extend special thanks to all the reviewers who participated in the
double-blind review process for this book:
• David Galán-Madruga
• Department of Atmospheric Pollution (National Reference Laboratory for Air
Quality in Spain), National Center for Environmental Health (Health Institute
Carlos III), Madrid, Spain
• Alfred Lawrence
• Department of Chemistry, Isabella Thoburn College, Lucknow-226007, U.P., India
• Tahmeena Khan
• Department of Chemistry, Integral University, Lucknow-226026, U.P., India
• Hitesh Mohapatra
• School of Computer Engineering, KIIT Deemed to be University, Odisha, India
• Nazgol Hafizi
• Department of Architecture, Eastern Mediterranean University,
Famagusta, Cyprus
• Chandreyee Chowdhary
• Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Jadavpur University, India
• Priya Roy
• Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Sister Nivedita University,
Kolkata, India
• S. Müjdem VURAL
• Faculty of Architecture, Department of Architecture, Eastern Mediterranean
University, Northern Cyprus
vii
About the Book
Smart buildings can improve quality of life by a considerable level. Smart buildings
provide an enhanced lifestyle to elderly people, disabled patients, and children as
well. There are plenty of advanced technologies that can be used to create smart
building environments. This book focuses on the integration of IoT and computer-
aided systems for the development of smart buildings. The scope of this book
includes, but is not restricted to, advanced technologies for monitoring, energy man-
agement, protection, safety, assisted living, and intelligent operations. It covers the
wide aspects of interconnected smart services with convenient interfacing to the
end-users. The chapters in this volume provide valuable information on the utiliza-
tion of advanced technologies for designing smart building applications. Moreover,
this book throws light on challenges, opportunities, and applications of IoT and
computer-aided systems to enhance human lifestyle with improved building envi-
ronments. This book may help upcoming researchers to understand the potential of
emerging technologies to create smart building environments along with consider-
able problems in this research area.
ix
Contents
Environmental Data Control in Smart Buildings: Big Data Analysis

and Existing IoT Technological Systems�� 1
David Galán-Madruga

Need of Technological Interventions for Indoor Air Quality and Risk
Assessment Upon Short-Term Exposure: A Futuristic Approach�� 19
Tahmeena Khan and Alfred J. Lawrence
Climate-Neutral Districts with Decentralized Energy Production,
E-Mobility and Through the Formation of an Energy Community
Exchange of Electricity and Heat �� 39
Severin Beucker, Walter Konhäuser, Ingo Schuck, and Olaf Ziemann

IoT-Enabled Zero Water Wastage Smart Garden�� 71
Hitesh Mohapatra, Mohan Kumar Dehury, Abhishek Guru,
and Amiya Kumar Rath

IoT-Based Human Activity Recognition for Smart Living�� 91
Anindita Saha, Moumita Roy, and Chandreyee Chowdhury
Application of Data Mining to Support Facilities Management
in Smart Buildings �� 121
Matthew Willetts and Anthony S. Atkins
Application of Artificial Intelligence in Ambient Assisted Living
to Support Elderly People in Smart Homes�� 145
Benhur Bakhtiari Bastaki, Mohamed Sedky, Russell C. Campion,
and Anthony Atkins
Index�� 165
xi
About the Editors
Gonçalo Marques holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science Engineering and is a

Senior member of the Portuguese Engineering Association (Ordem dos Engenheiros).
He is currently working as Assistant Professor lecturing courses on programming,
multimedia, and database systems. Furthermore, he worked as a Software Engineer
in the Innovation and Development unit of Groupe PSA automotive industry from
2016 to 2017 and in the IBM group from 2018 to 2019. His current research interests
include the Internet of Things, Enhanced Living Environments, machine learning,
e-health, telemedicine, medical and healthcare systems, indoor air quality monitor-
ing and assessment, and wireless sensor networks. He has more than 80 publications
in international journals and conferences, is a frequent reviewer of journals and
international conferences, and is also involved in several edited book projects.
Jagriti Saini was born in Himachal Pradesh, district Mandi in 1992. She holds a
Diploma in Electronics and Communication Engineering (2010) from GPW
Kandaghat and completed her B.Tech. in Electronics and Communication
Engineering (2013) from HPU. She received a Master’s degree in Electronics and
Communication Engineering from the National Institute of Technical Teacher’s
Training and Research (NITTTR), Chandigarh (Panjab University), India (2017).
She was awarded a Gold Medal for securing the highest percentile in the entire
university during her Master’s degree. Jagriti completed her Ph.D. thesis from
NITTTR (Panjab University), Chandigarh. She also recieved an INSPIRE fellow-
ship from the Department of Science and Technology (DST), India, for carrying out
her research work. Her current research interests include artificial intelligence, the
Internet of Things, environmental monitoring, indoor air quality monitoring and
prediction, healthcare systems, e-Health, and autonomous systems. Her Ph.D. thesis
entitled “Design and Development of Intelligent Indoor Air Quality Monitoring and
Prediction System – Vayuveda” is mainly focused on developing cost-effective real-
time monitoring and prediction system for indoor air quality management. She pub-
lished more than 25 papers in reputed peer-reviewed international journals and
conferences. Other than this, she is a frequent reviewer of journals and international
conferences and is also working on several edited book projects.
xiii
xiv About the Editors
Maitreyee Dutta was born in Guwahati, India. She received a B.E. degree in
Electronics and Communication Engineering in 1993 from Guwahati University
and was Gold Medalist in the same year. She obtained an M.E. degree in Electronics
and Communication Engineering and a Ph.D. degree in the Faculty of Engineering
from Panjab University. She is currently a Professor and Head of Information
Management and Emerging Engineering and a Joint Professor in the Computer
Science and Engineering Department, at the National Institute of Technical
Teachers’ Training and Research, Chandigarh, India. She has more than 22 years of
teaching experience. Her research interests include the Internet of Things, security
of data, IP networks, Internet, authorization, data privacy, Public Key encryption,
pattern clustering, cloud computing, and data compression. She has more than 100
research publications in reputed journals and conferences. She completed two spon-
sored research projects: Establishment of Cyber Security Lab, funded by the
Ministry of IT, Government of India, New Delhi, amounting to Rs. 45.65 lac; and
Establishment of Advanced Cyber Security Lab sponsored by MeitY, New Delhi,
amounting to 62 lacs. One sponsored project Securing Billion of Things-SEBOT
funded by All India Council of Technical Education, New Delhi of amount Rs.
14.98 lacs is in progress.
Environmental Data Control in Smart
Buildings: Big Data Analysis and Existing
IoT Technological Systems
David Galán-Madruga
1 Introduction
Throughout history, the study and development of the different branches of science
have provided primordial advances for improving human beings’ life quality and
wellness. For example, progress in medicine has allowed the cure of diseases that in
preterit times were deadly. In addition, easy access to food and better nutrition has
led to greater longevity of human beings. Although scientific and technological
advances are translated into an indisputable enhancement for the human being, they
may lead to issues within the Public Health frame.
In this sense, a general population rise at the global level has generated a dispro-
portionate waste increase toward the different environmental compartments (air,
water and soil matrices) [1] as a consequence of exponential industrial growth and
an expansion of transportation networks, among other factors [2]. This scenario is
accented in urban environments, given that a high percentage of the population is
involved in these areas [3]. Research studies record the urban zones as the most pol-
luted atmospheres [4]. The great cities are complex environments at the urbanist
level, diverse and dynamic places that include a wide variety of sectors, such as
industry, health, and education. Considering all aspects, the “smart cities” concept
arises, referring to those cities whose urbanistic plan incorporates the existing tech-
nology to solve urban problems such as energy consumption or environmental pol-
lution. According to European Commission, the parameters for making an ideal
smart city are ranked into three groups: (i) production and consumption of urban
energy, (ii) urban transport and mobility and (iii) urban information and
D. Galán-Madruga (*)
Department of Atmospheric Pollution. National Center for Environmental Health,
Carlos III Health Institute, Madrid, Spain
e-mail: david.galan@isciii.es
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 1

G. Marques et al. (eds.), IoT Enabled Computer-Aided Systems for Smart
Buildings, EAI/Springer Innovations in Communication and Computing,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26685-0_1
2 D. Galán-Madruga
communication technologies [5]. The application of technology resources in smart

cities provides advantages the enterprises and the general population that resides in
that concrete city. It solves environmental and social inequalities, generating the
most sustainable urban environment. The creation of smart cities is developed by
respecting the environment, which minimizes the potential climate change impact.
Due to the progressive rise in population in urban areas, the development of smart
cities results in primordial strategy and a future challenge. It is estimated that 68%
of people worldwide will live in urban areas by 2050 [6].
A most focused approach within the smart cities’ conceptualization includes
smart buildings, particularly environmental control in indoor spaces. It is relevant to
highlight that people spend 90% of their time indoors, converting these locations
into determining zones to minimize the impact on human beings from exposure to
inside environmental pollutants and control meteorological conditions and noise
levels. Another determining agent in the environmental monitoring of smart build-
ings is the energy factor. Nowadays, 40% of the energy used globally is spent on
keeping and adequately working buildings to supply occupants’ wellness at the pro-
fessional and personnel levels [7]. In this sense, there are specific sensors for moni-
toring indoor air quality and me-meteorological variables; nevertheless, given the
vast data amount generated, analyzing the recorded datasets is a challenge to get
helpful information that establishes behavior patterns. Automating processes is a
viable alternative for featuring a solution to the posed challenge.
Over the last decades, the enormous development of technologies and connectiv-
ity, information networks, and computer tools has allowed advancing the intelligent
control of environmental data monitored in smart buildings. The control of environ-
mental conditions in smart buildings favors the occupant’s security and wellness. It
is an expensive protocol requiring long-term monitoring, specific equipment, and
specialized personnel. Within this context, the Internet of Things (IoT) plays a lead-
ing key. Its objective is to interconnect physics elements with the Internet [8] and to
provide interactions among themselves and with people worldwide.
This chapter aims to provide an overview of controlling environmental data
within smart buildings using IoT tools, evidencing its need, architecture, problems
and limitations and discussing potential future challenges. The application of IoT-
based systems for controlling indoor environmental quality reaches a highly rele-
vant meaning in the current society framework, given the emergence of a worldwide
pandemic. The new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) discovered in December 2019 in
Wuhan, Hubei province (China) [9], causing the infectious disease named
COVID-19 and contributing to a crisis at the global level, urged countries to force
lockdown measures to prevent the SARS-CoV-2 transmission. Therefore, control of
the indoor environmental quality, with particular emphasis on air quality status,
became an essential issue in terms of health. In this regard, the enforcement of IoT
for monitoring indoor ambient spaces may offer remarkable advantages in order to
secure human beings’ health. Table 1 shows several research studies focused on the
link between IoT and COVID-19 and similar viruses.
The present chapter is structured as follows: the conceptualization of smart
building and IoT is addressed in Sects. 2 and 3, respectively. Section 4 describes the
Environmental Data Control in Smart Buildings: Big Data Analysis and Existing IoT… 3
Table 1 Investigation studies encompassing the link between IoT and COVID-19 and
similar viruses
References The base of the study
Akbarzadeh et al. Design a smart hospital by using detectors to manage the number of visitors
[10] and zones they occupy
Ghaleb et al. [11] Investigation of the IoT response to the COVID-19
Meraj et al. [12] Investigation of IoT solutions to detect and predict infectious diseases, such
as the flu, Zika, or COVID-19
Siddiqui et al. Development of an IoT architecture to uphold the social distance in the
[13] pandemic cases
Chamola et al. Assessment of COVID-19 impact on the worldwide economy using IoT
[14]
Fatima et al. [15] Proposal of an IoT fuzzy framework to predict and monitor COVID-19
Kumar et al. [16] Suggestion of an IoT-based architecture to reduce the COVID-19 spreading
Mohammed et al. Development of a smart appliance with thermal and face recognition to
[17] identify COVID-19 infected individuals
Mohammed et al. Development of a drone-based technology to accelerate the location of
[18] COVID-19 infected individuals and places
Singh et al. [19] IoT applications to discover symptoms of COVID-19
Yang et al. [20] Integration of the IoT with the geographic positioning system included in
smartphones for tracking infected case
Sareen et al. [21] Investigation of IoT solutions that address the COVID-19-like viruses
basic aspects related to big data analysis and governance are reported, Sect. 5
includes the IoT systems used in the smart building to manage the indoor environ-
mental factors are exhibited, and in Sect. 6, the applications of IoT systems, learned
lessons, and future challenges are discussed.
2 Definition of Smart Building
First, it is necessary to highlight a controversy between the “intelligent” and “smart”

building definitions. An interesting study in 1988 provided a simple conceptualiza-
tion of an intelligent building, defining it as a building that thoroughly monitors its
inside environment [22]. Other authors enlarged the intelligent building concept,
including the inside occupants. So, [23] reported that an intelligent building devel-
ops an environment allowing occupants maximum efficiency and proficiency in
managing the building resources at the lowest cost using appropriate technology.
In the case of a smart building, broadly, it has not been set as a consensual defini-
tion [24]. Nevertheless, the scientific community understands its broader conceptu-
alization regarding intelligent building. The smart building‘s concept surges when
integrating advanced technology into buildings to control all processes involving it
for human beings’ convenience.
4 D. Galán-Madruga
In order to offer the broadest overview to potential readers, the smart building
conceptualization will be divided into two definitions:
1. Definition 1: Those buildings allow remote controlling of everyday actions at
home, such as switching on heating, fireplace, lighting, electronic apparatus, and
opening curtains, among others. These performances can be driven over distance
using a smartphone or computer, and executing these remote actions requires
previous programming [25].
2. Definition 2: Those buildings learn to predict future home sceneries to conduct
specific actions. To achieve that, the smart building programs analyze the behav-
ior of inside occupants (developed activity, inhabitant number, among others)
and indoor environment (as examples: meteorological comfort, light or noise). In
this case, the target home is accommodated to the indoor occupant’s life cycle,
learning from them to make their own decisions, and favoring the comfort of
inside inhabitants or occupants [26].
In any case, the smart building is a concept covering several emerging technolo-
gies, which involves efficient sensors that allow automatizing the inside building
activities, using predictive data to improve the life quality of the population at
indoor locations (smart building). The elements comprising smart buildings infra-
structure include three individual elements [27]: (i) Devices receive signs or mes-
sages from indoor sensors, and then they send this information to other sensors or
central system, (ii) sensors dispatching information collected inside the building,
and (iii) communication network connecting all active elements with a central sys-
tem. For example, the equipment included in point (i) might be a switch, and a
lighting control sensor, as equipment the point (ii). Finally, a Wi-Fi network would
fit within the point (iii). In this sense, Fig. 1 displays several inside smart building
components.
Fig. 1 Indoor smart

building components
The development of smart buildings may be translated into notable benefits

listed below:
1. Improving occupant’s convenience,
2. Implementing domotic,
3. Guaranteeing occupant’s health,
4. Favoring energy saving.
5. Easing occupant’s time-saving.
Smart buildings are projected to interrelate with the surrounding environment, pon-
dering, acquiring knowledge and making decisions to solve the issue in indoor
spaces affecting human beings [28].
3 Definition of Internet of Things
IoT is an enabled object network consisting of smart sensors or actuators [29] that
interact with one another and with the environment collecting information and shar-
ing learning to make human being life easier [30]. IoT features a broad spectrum of
tools connected by the Internet using IP addresses belonging to each sensor. The
International Telecommunication Union defines the IoT as a worldwide infrastruc-
ture within the information field, providing advanced services when interconnecting
IoT elements [31]. The employment of IoT allows rising the efficiency of resource
utilization and minimizing human efforts.
Smart buildings are projected to interrelate with the surrounding environment,
pondering, acquiring knowledge, and making decisions to solve the issue in indoor
spaces affecting human beings. Environmental data collection is the responsibility
of the IoT, whereas the recorded dataset treatment points to Artificial Intelligence
(AI). Despite the potential applications of IoT in diverse fields or sectors, the related
IoT technology ranks its architecture in four groups: data collecting and transport-
ing, storing, processing and availability [32]. In this case, Fig. 2 shows IoT-based
systems architecture associated with smart buildings.
DATA AVAILABILITY
COLLECTING TRANSPORTING
MINING
Application
Programming
Interface
ACTUATORS
Graphical user
interface
SMART BUILDINGS
Fig. 2 IoT-based systems architecture in smart buildings

6 D. Galán-Madruga
At the taxonomic level, the IoT involves the following categories: Energy, com-
munication (networks), functional attributes (data treatment algorithm), local user
interface, cloud storage data and hardware and software resources [33, 34]. The
energy results are an essential characteristic of most sensors or actuators. There are
several energy sources, such as the environment (solar panels), recharged sources
(batteries), and electric sources, among others [35]. Regarding communication,
some actuators present several communication interfaces. Within this property,
security plays a primordial key. The functional attributes associated with IoT tech-
nology allow registering of several types of smart buildings’ environmental data,
such as temperature, relative humidity and light level, among other variables. The
local user interface lets the user to configure the sensor settings. The interface may
be active (it involves a direct user interaction) or passive (the user interacts with the
sensors automatically). Another primordial aspect of IoT technology depends on
hardware and software resources. Regarding hardware, the quantity of random
access memory and central processing unit will influence the sensor performance
and software updates.
4 Big Data Analysis and Governance
Despite different definitions for the big data concept, it broadly refers to large and
complex datasets collected by companies and public organizations, among others,
that require nontraditional data processing applications to process them correctly
and reveal partners and trends [36]. Datasets may come from distinct sources such
as medical records, social networks, banking and polices data networks and police
data information.
Doug Laney firstly used the big data term in 2001. His definition involved funda-
mental characteristic threes within the big data conceptualization, named “3Vs.”
First, “Volume”: This feature is related to data storage. There is no data storage
problem because of computing’s massive advances. Second, “Velocity”: Is linked to
data acquisition. It is currently collected in real-time at high-speed rates. Finally,
“Variety”: Relates to the collected data type [37]. Subsequently, two characteristics
were added: “Value” refers to the cost, and “Veracity” points to the original dataset
cleaning [38]. Figure 3 represents the general characteristics of big data analysis.
Based on the previously mentioned, it can be sensed that the employment of big
data grants a notable advantage to the companies using it over those that do not.
This relevant aspect confers a competitive benefit to those businesses that utilize it
effectively in managing, making prompter and better-informed business decisions.
According to Sect. 3, IoT technology collects vast data from sensors or actuators.
In contrast, big data would ease the registered data storage and processing effi-
ciently and speedily, sustaining linked technologies. Big data analysis aims to
expand efficient methodologies that allow predicting future events and laying down
links between the original information dataset and the reached outcomes for reveal-
ing scientific knowledge. The leading advantages of big data analysis against con-
ventional analysis techniques using small data groups are: (i) scanning heterogeneity
Fig. 3 Basic features

of big data analysis
among subgroups and (ii) drawing common factors among elements included in
each subgroup [39].
Big data has already been implemented practically in diverse fields, such as agri-
culture [40], personalized medicine [41], consumer habits [42], marketing [43], air-
line route profitableness optimization [44], and cybersecurity [45], to name a few
examples. In order to reach reliable outcomes when using big data analysis, excel-
lent datasets governance is a fundamental process. It involves aspects such as readi-
ness, integrity, and security of data, protecting data in each big data analytic step.
Therefore, the governance process drives dataset management [46].
5 IoT Technological Systems for Smart Buildings
A smart building comprises sensors to monitor the specific inside building condi-
tions. The data recorded by these sensors may be controlled by proceeded technol-
ogy. A highlighted technology supporting this objective leads to IoT technology;
several examples offer readers IoT tool applications in smart buildings.
5.1 Thermal Comfort
Thermal comfort has become a relevant variable for stimulating human wellness in
general and raising the employee productivity level in offices and industrial build-
ings [47, 48] implemented IoT to estimate personal thermal comfort. They created
8 D. Galán-Madruga
a system that collects telemetric information using an IoT sensors network, user
suggestions and meteorological measurements (temperature, humidity and air
speed). They introduced all registered information into an algorithm of machine
learning. The proposed approach evidenced good outcomes. Another relevant
research group from the School of Information Science and Technology, North
China University of Technology, Beijing, China, set a novel approach for control-
ling thermal comfort within a livable environment. Similar to the previous study,
they monitored indoor temperature and relative humidity using sensors. In addition,
they took into account individuals’ activity and clothing conditions via video cam-
eras integrated into the IoT network of sensors. They concluded that the individuals’
metabolic rates and clothing insulation greatly affected thermal comfort at the per-
sonal level [49].
In order to supply additional information within this section context, a highly
highlighted research study performed a bibliography review process between 2017
and 2021 to collect recent literature on methodologies for controlling thermal com-
fort in buildings. They gathered 166 works [50].
Broadly, the control of thermal comfort in smart buildings may be directly trans-
lated into the benefit of the healthcare of the occupants. Another significant conse-
quence of controlling thermal comfort is supporting energy efficiency; aspect is
essential because 40% of the energy consumption at the global level takes place
inside buildings.
5.2 Visual Comfort
First, it is appropriate to highlight that the visual comfort of the occupants of build-
ings is usually sensed using photometric sensors, which assess the luminaire inten-
sity concerning daylight readiness [51]. The leading drawback of this sensor type
resides in its location within the building. If the photometric sensor is close to a
daylight focus, as a window, its performance may cause an inside light attenuation,
generating occupants’ discomfort. Therefore, this one should be placed near the
occupant emplacement. Other aspects, such as light spectrum or blinding, also are
factors to consider since they may influence the control of visual comfort by employ-
ing photometric sensors [52].
Like the thermal comfort variable, optimal monitoring of visual comfort carries
energetic savings. As practical examples, two studies are reported [53]. conducted a
study to contrast two different inside-office environmental situations regarding eve-
ning lighting levels to identify which one displayed higher energy efficiency using
photo sensors. In the same line, [54] revealed an adapted focusing on controlling the
public lighting in a smart city, sparing lighting and keeping visual comfort in illu-
minated zones.
5.3 Noise Level
The application of IoT tools in controlling noise levels aids decision-making con-
cerning the implementation of noise control strategies in smart buildings, given that
acoustic pollution generates a psychologically and physiologically unbalance in
humans [55]. The authors of [56] developed an IoT-based noise-controlling system
consisting of a sound sensor and an IoT network. They created an IoT-based noise-
controlling system consisting of a sound sensor and an IoT network. This combined
system aimed to issue a real-time alert when noise levels exceeded legislative limits.
5.4 Occupant Security
Another practical application of IoT technology in smart buildings is associated

with security subjects. For example, occupancy sensors may detect whether a con-
crete room is occupied or not [57], if opening windows or doors are, and if it occurs,
among others. Another example of applying IoT based on security systems in smart
buildings is cases of illegal intrusion. Movement sensors may lock the main door
and activate the security alarm. As a smart action, the system calls a security com-
pany to proceed with intruder detention. The final objective in implementing the
security IoT tools in smart buildings is to protect the building occupants’ integrity
by monitoring real-time information for ulterior decision-making that derive smart
actions.
5.5 Indoor Air Quality
Atmospheric pollution is the leading environmental risk for human beings [58]
since that numerous scientific studies sustain links between air pollutants exposure
and damaging human beings [59, 60]. Therefore, poor air quality derives a health
issue, generating a severe public administration concern. This worry is aggravated
in indoor spaces, given that there are no air quality standards for protecting human
beings [61], translated into uncertainty on exposure to air pollutants levels. For this
reason, controlling air quality in indoor spaces becomes a primordial action. In this
regard, IoT utilization in smart buildings allows monitoring of indoor air quality and
managing the smartly monitored scenery, if necessary.
Suppose high air pollutant levels are measured within a smart target building;
preventive measures should be implemented to protect occupants’ health, such as
leaving the indoor space or opening windows to force a decrease in air pollutants
concentrations. Sometimes, this last measure is not appropriate since ambient out-
door air pollutants levels are higher than indoor, which harms indoor air quality in
an air indoor/outdoor interchange process through opening windows.
10 D. Galán-Madruga
Table 2 Research works employed IoT technology for controlling air pollutants in indoor spaces
References Monitored compounds
Tagliabue et al. [62] CO2a
John et al. [63] PM2.5b, PM10c, and CO2
Wall et al. [64] Air quality index
Jo et al. [65] Aerosol, VOCd, COe, and CO2
Saini Dutta [66] Air quality index
Dhanalakshmi et al. [67] CO2
Jose y Sasipraba [68] CO2 equivalent, ethanol, and TVOCf
Zhao et al. [69] CO2 and formaldehyde
Firdhous et al. [70] O3g
Parmar et al. [71] CO, CO2, SO2, and NO2h
Belyakhina et al. [72] PM10
a
Carbon dioxide
b
Particles with an aerodynamic diameter lower than 2.5 μm
c
Particles with an aerodynamic diameter lower than 10 μm
d
Volatile organic compounds
e
Carbon monoxide
f
Total volatile organic compounds
g
Ozone
h
Nitrogen dioxide
IoT based on systems for controlling indoor air quality in smart buildings has
been implemented successfully (see Table 2).
Broadly, the application of air quality monitoring IoT-based systems in indoor
environments has been implanted for a low pollutants number. Essential compounds
in health, such as benzene, should be addressed using this technology.
Since indoor air quality control is a worldwide issue, the answer set should be
addressed globally. The emergence of smart buildings using IoT technology tools
might offer a solution at the global level for controlling air pollution at indoor loca-
tions. This reflection reaches a relevant magnitude because indoor air pollution may
differ for each indoor place.
Within the frame of smart buildings, the progress of IoT technology provides
solutions when it comes to designing the buildings inside and selecting building
materials to ease the occupants’ comfort, wellness and security of buildings. IoT in
smart buildings allows for better personalizing each occupant’s comfort within the
building.
The combined action of sensors used for monitoring a smart building‘s environ-
ment (as for thermal, visual, fire, security, or indoor air quality sensors, among oth-
ers) generates a convenient environment for the inside occupants.
6 Discussion
Environmental control in buildings (indoor spaces) is a primordial action to know

the occupants’ exposure to environmental agents. In this line, the use of IoT-based
sensors and prediction models to control the environmental status of indoor spaces
are practices already implemented. To provide some examples, a blockchain-based
personalized IoT system was developed to control indoor temperature. They vali-
dated the system using a chamber experiment and a field experiment. In conclusion,
thermal comfort was improved, keeping personnel privacy and security [73]. The
Shiv Nadar University (India) developed a context-aware IoT-enabled framework to
analyze and predict indoor air quality using indoor pollutants and meteorological
data [74]. The proposed approach could perform various tasks such as data collec-
tion, preprocessing, defining rules, and forecasting the predicting states to deter-
mine the status of the indoor environment.
Due to the leading health repercussions, controlling pollution in the indoor air
matrix is a vital action. Elevated polluting levels may cause damaging effects on the
human being, for which its monitoring results in essential for protecting human
health, which acquires high importance in indoor than outdoor environments, given
that the exposure period is notably significant. Forecast techniques may become a
valuable tool to anticipate potential high pollution episodes. In this frame, diverse
analysis techniques such as linear regression, support vector regression, and the
gradient-boosted decision tree have been used to magnify air pollution monitoring
and prognosis. This evidence sustains that IoT-based systems using hybrid AI tech-
niques help improve human beings’ wellness [75, 76]. CO2 and particulate matter
concentrations (PM10 and PM2.5 particles) were predicted using an artificial neural
networks [77]. The prediction models, precise enough, may be integrated within
indoor control systems in buildings.
Based on previously cited arguments, it is easy to understand that the control of
airflow (inlets and outlets) in indoor spaces is a topic highly significant for control-
ling the occurrence and distribution of indoor air pollutants. In this regard, an inves-
tigation group from Chonnam National University (Republic of Korea) developed a
framework to control the airflow pattern using AI to remove indoor airborne pollut-
ants effectively [78].
Considering building factors influencing building occupants’ wellness, the use of
machine learning and deep learning as subfields of AI have already been implanted
in areas such as architectural design and visualization; material design and optimi-
zation; structural design and analysis; offsite manufacturing and automation; con-
struction management, progress monitoring, and safety; smart operation, building
management [79]. Similarly, machine learning and deep learning methods have
been implemented to enhance building energy efficiency, an aspect highly relevant
in situations of energetic emergence [80]. These techniques can easily enhance
knowledge of responsible energy consumption factors, such as building shape, con-
struction material, and building orientation [81].
Based on the previous evidence, it is deduced that IoT technology implemented

in smart buildings favors building management and occupant’s comfort.
Nevertheless, diverse factors relating to IoT use in these environments must yet be
addressed, listed following:
1. Collected data storage: given that information recorded in smart buildings sup-
poses a vast amount of data, repository systems that require the lowest resources
than those current ones should be developed.
2. Data treatment: high-capacity processing tools should be expanded in their
application level. In this sense, machine learning and deep learning are funda-
ment implementations within the IoT frame.
3. Network security: this aspect is primordial to implementing IoT technology in
smart buildings to avoid attacks from outside networks.
4. Occupants’ privacy: due to visual sensors within smart buildings, a protocol
should secure occupants’ privacy in smart buildings [82].
5. Sensors cost: affordable costs would favor the implementation of IoT at the
global level. Within this section, sensors that monitor indoor environmental qual-
ity in smart buildings require a leading challenge. In order to provide reliable
measurements, those sensors should be previously validated regarding reference
methodologies. For example, indoor air quality sensors should be tested against
reference air quality methods laid down in current legislation. In addition, those
sensors monitored air pollutants in gaseous and particulate phases, whereas the
composition of these particles is not covered. In this sense, a critical challenge
leads to developing sensors that analyze the particulate composition.
6. Technical training: the employment of IoT systems demands qualified person-
nel, given the technical requirement to use those technological tools. The notable
IoT technology advance suggests a vast implementation of this type of technol-
ogy in the future, thereby raising the number of smart buildings globally. This
powerful reason sustains the necessity of considerably increasing the number of
training university centers to solve the potential future demand for professionals
within this science field. The taxonomy of the previously cited factors is repre-
sented in Fig. 4 to summarize the previously reported.
As learned lessons, the implementation of IoT-based systems to control indoor envi-
ronmental agents in order to improve human wellness has already implanted
Fig. 4 Classification of
the current challenges to be
addressed within the IoT
use frame in smart
buildings
success, covering a wide range of indoor environmental factors able to harm occu-
pants’ comfort in any sense. Given that the human beings’ exposure to an indoor
environmental quality poor is a global issue, the application of AI-based existing
algorithms may offer a valuable solution worldwide due to the advantages of sus-
taining versus conventional methods (measurement equipment of indoor environ-
mental factors, such as instrumentation for measuring noise, light amount, air
pollution, among other).
As future challenges, the use of IoT-based sensors to monitor the indoor environ-
mental quality status needs to be tested to secure the performance adequate of the
target sensors. For example, those instruments monitoring indoor air quality should
be validated versus conventional reference instrumentation. This last one corre-
sponds to equipment measuring that relied on standard methodologies accepted at
the scientific level. This reflection may be applied to any measurement equipment
for any indoor environmental agent.
On the other hand, using existing AI algorithms within the IoT frame has advan-
tages and limitations. Variables such as data availability, practicability and compu-
tational cost are features that should be considered to select an appropriate algorithm.
The development of algorithms should finish with their validation.
As previously evidenced, the application of IoT and data analysis has been dem-
onstrated to be a valuable tool to manage indoor environmental factors in favoring
human health and wellbeing. Nevertheless, its use is limited to specific buildings,
while large-scale applications should be addressed. The IoT systems utilization in a
global scope would allow getting remarkable information based on a multitude of
indoor environment scenarios, which would be translated into enhanced predictions
and global conclusions. This fact is relevant because it would let public and private
managers of buildings establish common patterns in order to safeguard and favor
the indoor spaces’ occupants’ wellness. Its implementation would improve data
acquisition and share related to enhancing existing wireless networks and data stor-
age. Therefore, the optimization of IoT and AI tools should be addressed as a future
challenge, covering factors such as connectivity, network security or privacy.
Finally, indoor environmental factors control using data analysis and IoT-based
systems offer a unique opportunity for solving global issues by framing factors
related to human beings’ wellness.
7 Conclusions
The present chapter offers an overview of using data analysis and IoT systems to
manage environmental data in smart buildings in order to provide a benchmark to
potential readers. Today, informatics tools linked to IoT have been employed suc-
cessfully in managing indoor spaces, particularly smart buildings. Sensors have
been used to control the temperature inside buildings, visual control has been used
to arrange the entrance to intelligent buildings and guarantee an adequate occupa-
tion level, securing occupants’ security. Similarly, sensors monitoring indoor air
quality have also been used, and IoT systems to improve and optimize the design of
buildings.
As a main learned lesson, it has been demonstrated that the use of IoT systems in
controlling indoor environmental quality improves the occupants’ wellness.
Nevertheless, as limitations, improvements in the infrastructures (connection,
Wi-Fi, networks, among others) should be addressed, and the use of IoT systems
should foster worldwide, given that its current application is conducted punctually
in specific buildings, which sustains the leading future dare. The global application
of IoT to indoor management would help solve severe present-day problems, such
as controlling human beings’ exposure to indoor air pollutants and security issues,
among others. The management of environmental matters highlighted recently,
such as disease control (e.g., COVID-19) and energy consumption (particular
emphasis on energetic deficit situations), also can be globally controlled through
IoT systems use.
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Need of Technological Interventions
for Indoor Air Quality and Risk
Assessment Upon Short-Term Exposure:
A Futuristic Approach
Tahmeena Khan and Alfred J. Lawrence
1 Introduction
Growing population and urbanization have led to environmental deterioration and

posed a threat to global air quality [1] and a rise in global temperature [2]. Therefore,
it is crucial to create a healthy environment especially indoors where extreme air
conditioning is used. Efficient energy management systems for sustainable develop-
ment and living have become requirements, for instance, Home Energy Management
Systems (HEMS) [3]. Short-term variation in pollution and exposure is often
neglected, although it has long-term consequences on human health. In the Indian
context where the air quality of prominent cities including the National capital
Delhi is already deteriorating day by day with the worst particulate (PM2.5) pollution
[4] due to vehicular exhaust, industrial emission, waste and stubble burning, con-
struction work as major contributors [5], the pollution load only worsens by epi-
sodic events such as Diwali, which is the mega festival of Hindus celebrated at the
onset of winters. During the festival, customary firecracker burning takes place and
facilitated by the meteorological conditions creates a disaster for the environmental
health. Burning of fireworks leads to the release of As, S, Mn, sodium oxalate,
potassium perchlorate, sodium nitrite, barium nitrate, Al and Fe dust. Other than
this, SO2, CO2, CO and suspended particles are also released associated with severe
health hazards [6]. Emergency hospital admissions have been associated with the
drastic variation in air quality during the Diwali festival and elevated asthma attacks.
The risk of mortality from different causes is also associated with short-term expo-
sure to pollutants. Short-term exposure to particulate matter and SO2 also aggravate
T. Khan
Department of Chemistry, Integral University, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India
A. J. Lawrence (*)
Department of Chemistry, Isabella Thoburn College, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26685-0_2
20 T. Khan and A. J. Lawrence
the conditions of asthma and bronchitis [7]. The retention of pollutants favored by
atmospheric inversion under cold climatic conditions leads to the formation of fog
which stays closer to the ground before getting dispersed in the atmosphere. The
formation of fog caused by short-term variation in air quality may worsen lung,
heart and neurological diseases. The burning of firecrackers adds to a short-term
increase in ambient air pollution and also reaches indoors hampering the IAQ. The
smoke contributes to the level of particulate matter, SO2, NO2, CO2, heavy metals
and volatile organic compounds.
Animal and controlled exposure studies depicted that the PM2.5, NO2 and O3
exposure increases the chances of asthma mortality, although the underlying mecha-
nism is not known. Countries like China and India which have high pollutant expo-
sure may have direct irritant and inflammatory responses [8]. At a lower level, the
pollutants can induce airway inflammation which can, later on, aggravate asthma.
Airway hyperresponsiveness can also be promoted upon NO2 and O3 exposures [9].
These pollutants also lead to oxidative stress. The technological interventions may
be used to alert the exposed public about the variations in the pollution level and
also to be aware of the meteorological factors and their effect on the transport of the
pollution and its fate. Ambient-Assisted Living (AAL) has emerged as an essential
aid in field for the assistance of ambient and personal healthcare monitoring [10].
These devices generally work on wireless technologies like ZigBee, Ethernet, Wi-Fi
and Bluetooth. However, several challenges are faced while designing and imple-
menting of effective AAL system including interaction design, usability and acces-
sibility [11].
Privacy and confidentiality are also important factors to deal with while access-
ing these devices and the Internet of Things (IoT) provides an integrated urban-scale
ICT medium for a smart environment [12]. IoT has the potential to simulate real-life
scenarios. The concept has to be explored to extract accurate predictions, as the data
is provided at the microspatial scale [13].
Air pollutants consist of a mixture of physical, chemical and biological agents
posing a risk to humans and the environment. They consist of solid particles and
gaseous contaminants [14]. As per the World Health Organization (WHO), 2.4 mil-
lion fatalities take place due to air pollution annually, and 1.5 million of those are
linked to Indoor Air Pollution (IAP) [15, 16]. The indoor pollutants may be much
higher than the outdoor levels. Environmental Protection Agency also included IAP
as a prominent risk factor [17]. Poor Environment Indoor Air Quality hampers pro-
ductivity at work and induces lethargy, headache and mental fatigue [18]. The prob-
lem of poor IAQ is more severe in developing nations. Even short-term exposure to
pollutants is very dangerous to the elderly and children. CO2 serves as an indicator
of IAQ [19]. Thermal comfort is also linked to IAQ and associated with CO2 [20].
Several respiratory and cardiovascular diseases are linked to [21] are linked to CO,
CO2, NO2, O3, PM and VOCs. Air exchange is also significant in the indoor environ-
ment and is associated with the comfort level. Confined spaces can lead to serious
health implications including sick building syndrome (SBS) [22]. Air pollution sen-
sors also detect gaseous pollutants and PM [23].
Need of Technological Interventions for Indoor Air Quality and Risk Assessment… 21
The indoor air quality index (IAQI) can also be calculated using the cumulative
pollutant concentration ratio of toxicity level. More studies and research are needed
to be focused on the policy legislation, scrutiny and real-time mechanisms for accu-
rate predictions in the indoor environment. It is therefore necessary to perform real-
time monitoring and to ensure a healthy environment. There are four pollutants
found in the indoor environment and four pollutants governing the thermal comfort
level which are linked to human health [24]. An index categorized in four different
levels has been used to assign the quality of the indoor air [25].
• Excellent: The EIAQI ranges between five and six, with small or no risk associ-
ated with the air quality.
• Good: The EIAQI ranges between three and five with acceptable air quality. A
few toxins may be present in the air posing respiratory threats to the occupants.
• Bad: EIAQI values are between one and three. Harmful for the sensitive groups
which are likely to be more affected than others.
• Worst: EIAQI is below 1, triggering alarming health effects for everyone who is
exposed.
Smart environmental monitoring (EM) works on addressing the environmental
pollutants challenges effectively. Pollution can be caused both by natural and man-
made sources and environmental monitoring is necessary for environmental protec-
tion [26]. With the advent of technological advancements, artificial intelligence (AI)
and machine learning, more precise environmental monitoring and optimal pollu-
tion control has become possible. The concept of a smart environment is based on
wireless networks operating on methods based on AI [27]. Devices based on IoT are
employed in WSNs for effective pollution control. Modern environment monitoring
methods comprising IoT and AI like wireless sensors are known as SEM systems
[28]. Smart Environmental Monitoring is being explored for sustainable environ-
mental protection and to curb undesirable effects to regulate the health and growth
of the society and weather forecasting [29]. Technological interventions like IoT
and wireless networking have enabled pollution assessment more feasible. The
Smart Environment Management (SEM) systems make use of sensors, wireless sen-
sor networks (WSN) and IoT devices and these devices communicate through net-
works. Smart environments are comprised of gadgets and sensors that are
interconnected to monitor air pollution and are employed in objects of daily usage
and may work efficiently through interaction [30]. Smart devices have useful appli-
cations in HEMS and the monitoring of atmospheric variations like temperature and
relative humidity [19].
The present chapter is intended to elaborate on the health hazards associated with
short-term variation in pollutants’ concentration, which often goes unnoticed but
has a delirious impact on human health and how with the help of IoT-based applica-
tions, the short-term variation can be predicted through different strategies like
fuzzy logic controllers. Similarly, the assessment of the health impact associated
with short-term exposure to air pollution is also significant and different exposure
assessment models and computational strategies are discussed in the course of the
study. The authors have presented a case study around Diwali, a prominent festival
involving customary firecracker burning and how the short-term variation in air pol-
lutants’ concentration impacts the exposed people. The authors have also presented
a tentative methodology to predict and curb the short-term exposure of firecrackers
and how their detrimental impact can be averted.
1.1 Role of Technological Intervention in Air

Quality Management
Of late, technological interventions for the monitoring and management of air qual-
ity have been growing, especially with the help of computational strategies. The
integration of IoT with technological interventions has emerged as a promising
solution for the expansion of state-of-the-art air quality monitoring systems. With a
clear understanding of the air quality at different levels, the decision-making pro-
cess may become easier. The following section gives a deeper insight into the appli-
cability of the IoT-based air quality management and prediction systems particularly
related to indoor air quality.
1.2 Internet of Things (IoT) and Applicability

for IAQ Management
IoT-based devices are connected with sensors and the obtained data may be used for
sustainable living and enhanced performance. IoT-based devices may be used effec-
tively for environmental regulation [31]. The artificial intelligence-based technique
makes the exchange of data easier. Several IoT systems for IAQ monitoring have
been proposed to process the transmission of data and microsensors for the acquisi-
tion of data and also enable the transfer of data [32]. Monitoring of O3, CO, NOx,
SOX, CO2, VOCs, particulate matter, temperature and humidity has been made pos-
sible by IoT-based sensors which used Raspberry Pi-based sensor module [33].
Another WSN for IAQ monitoring has been developed using Arduino, XBee mod-
ules and microsensors for storing the monitoring data in real time [34]. The sensor
nodes receive data through several sensor nodes through the ZigBee protocol [35].
Another ZigBee WSN system has been proposed to monitor CO2, VOCs, tempera-
ture and humidity has been proposed based on the Arduino platform [36]. However,
the system does not offer any mobile computing solution. An IAQ monitoring sys-
tem for AAL based on hybrid IoT/WSN to monitor atmospheric variables has been
proposed [37]. It is based on open-source technologies like Arduino and Zigbee. It
is of prime importance to monitor IAQ for global health assessment. Henceforth,
further exploration is needed to develop cost-effective and open-source monitoring
systems for IAQ monitoring [38].
1.3 Fuzzy Logic Controller
A fuzzy inference system is used to analyze indoor pollutants in rule-based opera-

tion mode. Data is collected from different sources. An environment indoor air qual-
ity index (EIAQI) is developed using the fuzzy theory which is aimed to improve air
quality. The fuzzy logic-based measurement is used for different pollutants and also
simulates comfort level and AQI for different pollutants to predict health hazards
and toxicity [39, 40]. The controller also ascertains the output response as depen-
dent on toxicity levels [41]. Simulation of fuzzy logic using lighting and windows
as a control system has been done for thermal comfort and the regulation of humid-
ity [42]. The building’s quality can be improved if the indoor environmental quality
(IEQ) can be improved [43]. On this principle, using the EIAQI as the main refer-
ence index status level containing indoor and thermal comfort pollutants, the clus-
tering technique divided the results of the fuzzy logic controller of IAQI and TCI
values. The EIAQ system classifies indoor air and thermal comfort pollutants with
differential health impacts. The conjugation of the EIAQ system with the fuzzy
logic controller will be significant for the accurate determination of environmental
quality.
1.4 Air Pollution Sensors
The Global Burden of Diseases study, 2015 identified air pollution as a major con-
tributor to global morbidity, particularly in developing countries [44]. Personal air
pollution exposure is a crucial point to explore to assess negative health impact;
however, it is difficult to estimate personal exposure and identify its sources posing
significant challenges owing to variability in exposure [45]. Most monitoring sta-
tions are fixed and continuously monitor air pollution in urban areas. They consist
of highly sophisticated instruments specific for the analysis of an array of contami-
nants. However, certain drawbacks are associated with them like the requirement of
large infrastructure for their installation, excessive cost and handling and mainte-
nance protocols. Spatial variability occurring at macro- and microscale levels, tem-
poral variability, occurring over time and inter-individual variability must be
monitored and identified. The high-resolution analytical techniques measuring pol-
lutants have high operating costs and are large; therefore, their utilization in mobile
air quality monitoring is not practicable [46]. However, they can be integrated into
a mini device called a sensor which has low energy consumption [47]. The principle
of detection can be either physical or chemical, but the electrochemical technique is
the predominant one as they do not require complex electrical circuits. Most of them
are metal oxide semiconductors and the variation in conductance and resistance by
chemical adsorption of gases at the surface of the semiconductor is calculated at
high temperatures [48, 49]. The presence of pollutants in indoor air poses great
health hazards to the occupants [50]. A linear correlation between the enthalpy and
acceptability of IAQ has been subjected to different studies and the results reveal
that the IAQ and temperature are interrelated [51]. The temperature has a stronger
effect on the IAQ than humidity [52]. Many low-cost Air Quality Sensors (LCAQS)
are becoming available with the superiority of feasible field placement, data accu-
mulation, storage and transfer [53]. For gaseous pollutants, sensors working on
infra-red technology are being used. Heterogeneous sensors and gas sensors can
work in mobile and immobile environments. The stored information can be pro-
cessed through the machine learning technique. They both may be implemented for
the assessment of a mixture of pollutants [55]. An efficient sensor may be able to
detect small changes in the concentrations and also should not interfere with day-to-
day activities in the indoor environment.
1.5 Air Quality Assessment Through Edge and Cloud

Computing Strategies
Edge computing enables a cost-effective measurement including personal exposure

[56]. An edge-computing system based on IoT, consisting of three layers is devel-
oped by [20] which interacts through Zigbee and Wi-Fi. The sensing layer sensed
the air quality and transferred it to edge computing or the middle layer. The applica-
tion layer stores the information and communicates with the user.
2 Health Risk Associated with Pollution Particularly

Short-Term Exposure
Ambient air pollution is linked to acute events in people having respiratory and
cardiovascular troubles upon short-term exposure [57, 58] and the effects on healthy
individuals are less prominent. As shown earlier, no significant association was
observed between short-term air pollution and non-COPD people [59, 60]. Short-
term exposure hampers the lung as shown earlier [61]. In a study with 1506 non-
smoking adults between 2011 and 2013, the association between mean particulate
levels, NO2 and O3 exposure was assessed showing that the short-term exposure led
to a decrease in lung function and pronounced manifestation of inflammatory mark-
ers in healthy individuals [62]. Ambient PM1 is another significant contributor to
PM2.5. However, health effects associated with PM1 are lesser known as the ground-
based PM1 measurement is very rare. A recent study relating hospital admission to
respiratory outcomes as associated with exposure to air pollution in China for
2 years used conditional logistic regression models. It was found that fine particles
inhalation was related to hospitalization pertaining to respiratory problems.
PM-hospitalization was also found to be associated with seasonal change, having
higher risks in the cold season [63].
Studies have also suggested that pollutants in ambient air may carry microorgan-
isms and pathogens which are invasive to humans and affect immunity [64]. A study
has reported a positive correlation between the pollutants concentrations with the
confirmed COVID-19 cases [65]. A study with 4.454 people in China who died
from asthma showed that short-term exposure to pollutants may enhance the mortal-
ity rate associated with asthma [66]. A delayed impact of pollutants has also been
observed in different age groups [67]. A novel air pollution index based on short-
term exposure to pollutants was established to predict the increase in daily mortality
risk [68].
2.1 Risk Assessment Associated with Short-Term Exposure
Some of the important short and long-term effects of air pollution exposure are
summarized below:
Short-term exposure
1. Visits to hospitals owing to heart and pulmonary ailments
2. Mortality
3. Absenteeism from work
4. Other acute symptoms
Cardiovascular effects of short and long-term exposure to PM2.5 have been exten-
sively reviewed covering a wider geographic area including Asia. A 10 μg/m3 hike
in the PM2.5 exposure leads to 6% (all-cause) and 11% (cardiovascular) mortality.
All-cause mortality has also been associated with exposure to elemental carbon and
NO2, both primarily originating from combustion sources. In a meta-analysis
involving 33 time-series and crossover studies in China for the assessment of mor-
tality effects upon short-term exposure to SO2, NO2, O3, CO and Particulate matter
(PM10, PM2.5), it was concluded that the mortality risk increased for all pollutants
under consideration [69]. Significant aggravation of COPD and lung function has
been linked with short-term exposure. The short-term effect of physical activity and
its association with air pollution and the effect of the interaction on cardiovascular
and respiratory effects were assessed in a group of healthy individuals in terms of
heart rate variability (HRV). Sensors were employed to measure the exposure of
black carbon as a marker of air pollution while doing physical activity. HRV and
lung function changed drastically response to PA in response to PA (METhours) and
logarithmic BC (% change) [70].
3 The Diwali Mayhem and Need for Technological

Interventions to Address the Short-Term Exposure:
A Case Study
The short-term variation in air pollution during Diwali has gained considerable
interest due to adverse health effects [23]. North Indian cities like Lucknow, Delhi
and Patna have been severely hit in the last few years after Diwali with the AQI
crossing the 400 mark as reported by CPCB. The air quality variation during the
festival is particularly valuable to be determined due to the ongoing COVID-19
pandemic because India is one of the worst-hit countries in terms of COVID-19-
related mortality. Post-Diwali there remains a higher probability of the particles
remaining suspended in the air assisting the transmission of the virus and those
already affected by the respiratory diseases are more at risk [71]. It is essential to
alert the exposed public beforehand as many of us feel safe inside our homes, not
knowing that we are exposed to hazardous pollutants during the short-term rise in
ambient air pollutant levels which may infiltrate our very homes. The role of tech-
nological interventions must be explored to avoid exposure and to safeguard the
inhabitants against hazardous pollutant levels. In a case study, we monitored the
variation in pollutants’ levels during Diwali 2020 and 2021 in Lucknow city. A
questionnaire survey was also done with over 51 doctors post-Diwali to see the
effect of the rise in pollution on people’s health. Table 1 summarizes the average
concentrations of some major pollutants during Diwali period for two consecutive
years (2020 and 2021) obtained from the Central Pollution Control Board website.
3.1 Health Effects Experienced After Firework Burning
A questionnaire survey conducted with 51 doctors of the city post-Diwali, 2021

revealed that around a 50–75% of increase in the number of patients post-Diwali.
The majority of the patients (57%) reported respiratory issues, followed by allergic
reactions reported by 42.9% of patients. Exacerbation of asthma (24.5%) and sinus-
itis (18.4%) were other reported issues. The symptoms were found prevalent in
people who were above 13 years of age (83.7%) followed by children between 5 and
13 years (22.4%) and infants (12.2%). Shortness of breath, cough and restlessness
were commonly reported, followed by congestion and runny nose and Itching in the
eyes and skin with a percentage of 36.7 and 34.7%, respectively. The results showed
that although people remained inside most of the time during the festival time
because of the holidays, still it may be suggested that they were exposed to high
concentrations leading to health issues. Figure 1 depicts the common troubles
reported post-Diwali.
Table 1 Twenty-four-hour average concentration of pollutants during Diwali 2021

Date PM2.5 (μg/m3) PM10 (μg/m3) NO2 (μg/m3) SO2 (μg/m3) CO (mg/m3) O3 (μg/m3)
Talkatora monitoring station
Pre-Diwali
12/11/2020 235.04 359.65 88.95 10.7 1.13 20.65
02/11/2021 143.45 421.26 94.46 14.3 1.00 47.44
13/11/2020 209.25 320.12 81.99 10.7 0.96 22.89
03/11/2021 218.75 504.78 100.33 14.7 10.6 47.17
Diwali
14/11/2020 257.62 359.5 59.94 10.7 1.07 31.56
04/11/2021 228.22 315.65 72.27 17.1 2.43 51.15
Post-Diwali
15/11/2020 401.56 513.67 69.85 8.93 25.49
05/11/2021
16/11/2020
06/11/2021 244.89 410.03 59.50 45.6 2.13 53.46
90.1 147.51 32.42 9.83 1.69 26.09
211.05 358.22 46.93 16.1 1.35 80.91
Central school monitoring station
Pre-Diwali
12/11/2020 109.17 304.27 67.94 6.91 0.99 28.21
02/11/2021
13/11/2020
03/11/2021 69.95 154.81 109.66 3.71 0.99 44.32
94.27 258.52 62.87 7.02 0.61 27.05
77.15 160.54 106.60 3.44 1.12 50.71
Diwali
14/11/2020 151.46 265.4 66.44 9.42 1.46 36.91
04/11/2021 103.61 216.26 100.32 9.40 1.20 45.22
Post-Diwali
15/11/2020 211.54 337.54 87.7 9.54 1.42 48.79
05/11/2021
16/11/2020
06/11/2021 190.34 200.01 91.24 10.2 1.60 42.83
54.89 112.64 50.53 7.17 1.27 35.24
84.72 182.72 57.14 6.75 1.70 66.22
Lalbagh monitoring station
Pre-Diwali
12/11/2020 147.51 299.18 50.83 7.08 1.81 66.71
02/11/2021
13/11/2020
03/11/2021 113.13 229.12 61.96 6.20 2.99 20.57
174.4 358.39 42.37 10.38 3.28 40.39
116.42 236.87 65.17 5.71 3.19 31.73
(continued)
Table 1 (continued)
Date PM2.5 (μg/m3) PM10 (μg/m3) NO2 (μg/m3) SO2 (μg/m3) CO (mg/m3) O3 (μg/m3)
Diwali
14/11/2020 194.67 316.07 42.7 10.38 3.28 40.39
04/11/2021 221.47 217.91 56.7 15.64 2.82 38.71
Post-Diwali
15/11/2020 385.3 446.15 56.2 22.18 1.17 51.46
05/11/2021
16/11/2020
06/11/2021 213.00 306.85 51.98 12.50 2.50 37.30
86.71 169.37 23.1 35.32 0.5 52.8
72.52 295.82 45.54 12.46 2.32 50.05
Fig. 1 Common troubles reported post-Diwali
3.2 Discussion
3.2.1 Suggested Health Risk Assessment Tools for Indoor Air Quality

Management: Exploration of Technological Intervention
The developed countries have been implementing different strategies like altera-
tions in industrial processes, emissions and technological interventions to
improve air quality. Hundreds of studies worldwide have linked daily changes
in air quality with mortality [72]. A simulation strategy was devised to assess
the risk over space and time associated with NO2 and ground-level O3 in 24 cit-
ies of Canada between 1884 and 2000 [73]. Two multiyear estimators using the
previous year’s data were used to approximate the present year’s risk. The esti-
mators were deduced from successive time-series analyses. Some other
significant computational simulation strategies used for short-term exposure

assessment are discussed below:
3.2.2 Human Exposure Model (HEM)
The HEM does risk assessment associated with air pollutants and how their trans-
portation is regulated along with associated health effects including cancer and non-
cancer risk.
3.2.3 Integrated Fuzzy-Stochastic, Proximity and Interpolation Modeling
The integrated fuzzy-stochastic modeling (IFSM) works on Monte Carlo simulation

for the ambient environment and the development of fuzzy air quality management
and health risk assessment. An integrated risk information system (IRIS) evaluates
health risks [74, 75]. The interpolation technique is based on deterministic and sto-
chastic approaches [76]. The interpolation technique has a distinct advantage as it is
based on real-time monitoring.
3.2.4 Smartphone-Aided Information
Smartphones can be used to alert the exposed person and used for the assessment of
personal air pollution. Aided with in-built sensors smartphones may be used to send
out warnings and alerts if the air quality degrades. Mobile health technologies may
aid in exposure estimates. Asthma Mobile Health Study was done to examine the
triggering of asthma depending on local exposure to air pollution [42]. Figure 2
Fig. 2 A proposed methodology for dealing with short-term air pollution health effects
represents a suggestive integrated model which may be used to assess the short-term
variation in air quality and its estimated impact on indoor concentrations to alert the
exposed people.
3.2.5 Forecasting
The dynamic changes in the pollutants’ concentration may be predicted by high-

speed simulations [77]. Community Multi-scale Air Quality (CMAQ) model, the
Nested Air Quality Prediction Modeling System (NAQPMS) and the WRFChem
model are some of the dynamic models [78]. Statistical predictions have also been
receiving significant attention. The multiple linear regression (MLR) method is the
most general method [79], the autoregressive moving average (ARMA) method, the
support vector regression (SVR) method [80, 81] and the hybrid method [82].
Nevertheless, these models do not integrate meteorological data which has a consid-
erable impact on the air quality [83]. Deep learning can be effective for feature
representation. Models based on deep learning neural networking like the Recurrent
Neural Network (RNN) [84], Elman Neural Network [85], Time Delay Neural
Network (TDNN) [86] and Geographical Deep Belief Network (Geoi-DBN) [87]
have been applied for air pollution predictions. A new short-term memory neural
network extended (LSTME) model based on the long short-term memory (LSTM)
model integrates the meteorological data as the auxiliary data to extract the spatio-
temporal correlations of air quality [88]. The model worked on input data from
neighboring monitoring stations. Another model based on spatiotemporal deep neu-
ral network (ST-DNN) integrates long short-term memory (LSTM) to derive tempo-
ral features [89]. However, the model does not consider the aerosol data having
PM2.5, which is found to be more relevant as compared to the meteorological data
[90]. A recent study has proposed a novel spatiotemporal convolutional long short-
term memory neural network for air quality prediction. The CNN and LSTM-NN
were used to extract spatiotemporal features and for long-term prediction [91].
4 Challenges and Future Opportunities
Data security and privacy are two main challenges associated with IoT implementa-
tion as data sharing on a public platform are not encouraged. A connectivity issue
between different IoT devices is another major challenge to overcome. Security risk
also increases exponentially as the number of connecting devices increases (Fig. 3).
The servers must have a large storage capacity to store massive data. This can be
apportioned on local servers or public/private cloud; however, invariably, it will be
associated with an increase in storage cost.
However, the most imperative opportunity of IoT-based technologies is for the
development of a smart indoor environment to trace human activity and improve
living conditions. Thermal comfort and energy efficiency can also be significantly
Fig. 3 Suggested dummy model to curb Diwali hazard
improved when monitored and regulated by IoT-based devices as they can predict
the energy consumption per device and the period of consumption and how the
indoor and outdoor activities affect the IAQ and their impact on the health of the
occupants. The most significant application of interconnected IoT-based devices is

in large buildings to optimize and equalize the distribution of total resources. Using
the data from IoT devices to the Cloud, future patterns of IAQ can be predicted. A
critical area to explore the use of IoT-based devices is in futuristic prediction before
indoor air pollution even reaches the threshold limit and how preventive measures
can be adopted. Another crucial opportunity to explore is the prediction of noise
pollution by the use of combined models/algorithms. The machine learning and
artificial intelligence approaches in conjugation with IoT devices can help in
decision-making for policymakers and draw preventive strategies [92].
5 Conclusion
In developing countries like India, IAQ monitoring and control have become very
significant in the wake of the COVID-19 spread. Short-term variation in ambient air
quality may also deteriorate the IAQ. The present study has explained the short-
term variation in pollutants’ levels through a case study during the Diwali period in
India and also discussed the gruesome health hazards of the exposure and how the
impact can be averted by timely information through a technological intervention
like sensors and smartphones. This chapter has highlighted the importance of air
quality and the effect of short-term variation on the health of the occupants. Most of
the research is focused on monitoring and quantification of air pollution; however,
the role of technological interventions based on IoT in health assessment is less
explored, particularly in the indoor environment and that very factor is dwelled
upon in this chapter. The authors have discussed several efficient computational
strategies, tools and models to assess the short-term changes in pollutants’ concen-
tration and their health impact. They have also presented a case study around Diwali
festival showing how gruesome the effects of short-term exposure can be on the
exposed population.
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Climate-Neutral Districts
with Decentralized Energy Production,
E-Mobility and Through the Formation
of an Energy Community Exchange
of Electricity and Heat
Severin Beucker, Walter Konhäuser, Ingo Schuck, and Olaf Ziemann
Abbreviations
ADSL Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line

AI Artificial Intelligence
CHP Combined Heat and Power
DSO Distribution System Operator
EMS Energy Management System
EV Electric Vehicle
FTTB Fiber To The Building
FTTC Fiber To The Curb
FTTH Fiber To The Home
GW Gateway
H2 Hydrogen
HVAC Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning
KNX-RF Open standard for Radio Frequency-links in buildings
LAN Local Area Network
LoRaWAN Long-range Radio Technology Wide Area Network
LTE Long-Term Evolution
MID Measuring Instruments Directive
MTC Machine-Type Communication
OCPP Open Charge Point Protocol
S. Beucker
Research, Borderstep Institute for Innovation and Sustainability, Berlin, Germany
e-mail: beucker@borderstep.de
W. Konhäuser (*) · I. Schuck · O. Ziemann
Oktett64 GmbH, Berlin, Germany
e-mail: walter.konhaeuser@oktett64.de; ingo.schuck@oktett64.de; ziemann.olaf@freenet.de

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26685-0_3
40 S. Beucker et al.
PtH Power to Heat

PV Photovoltaic
SMGW Smart Meter Gateway
SW Software
UV subdistribution board
VDSL Very High-Speed Digital Subscriber Line
WiFi Wireless Fidelity
1 Introduction
Today’s electricity generation, largely based on fossil fuels and nuclear power, is
incompatible with sustainable development [1]. Worldwide, electricity generation
accounts for around 26% of greenhouse gas emissions. Without massive expansion
of renewable energy, the 1.5° target to limit global warming will not be achievable
[2]. High social and economic costs, such as rising sea levels and persistent droughts,
would be the result of uncontrolled climate change in many sensitive regions of the
world. Not only disasters such as 2011 in Fukushima and 1986 in Chernobyl but
also handling of nuclear fuels and their final disposal show that nuclear power also
poses great risks and consequential costs for today’s generation and irreversible
damages for all future ones. In addition, there are high environmental impacts in the
extraction of uranium and fossil fuels. The switch to renewable energy-based elec-
tricity generation is therefore urgently needed. The expansion of renewable energies
pays off not only because of avoided environmental risks and consequential costs.
The costs of renewable power generation have fallen sharply in recent years, and
they are already partially competitive [3]. In the future, the price of fossil fuels and
uranium is expected to continue to rise and be subject to severe fluctuations, while
the costs of renewable energy will fall. As a result, renewable energy generation will
be more cost-effective in the foreseeable future. The expansion of renewable energy
sources is also based on industrial policies. The world markets for renewable energy
technologies are booming and nations are competing against each other for the lead-
ing position in these markets. Countries that promote renewable energy at an early
stage are in a favorable position [4].
Figure 1 shows the annual CO2 emissions from fossil fuels, by world region
between 1980 and 2020. Figure 2 shows the distribution of CO2 emission of private
households (living) 36%, traffic 26.6%, and nutrition 12.3%. Seventy-five percent
of the private households CO2 footprint can be influenced directly by individuals.
The biggest areas are industry and energy. Industry is working hard to reduce their
CO2 footprint, often in common concepts with Industry 4.0 deployment. The energy
footprint can be reduced most by using renewable energy in production stages.
Reducing CO2 emission in buildings and making this also happen for local energy
production must play an important role to make our environment greener. Both
require a low cost and efficient communication network and energy management
integrating systems inside and outside the building [5].
Climate-Neutral Districts with Decentralized Energy Production, E-Mobility… 41
Fig. 1 CO2 emissions from 1980 to 2020 [6]
Fig. 2 CO2 emission of private households in Germany
Emissions from the building sector vary between states, due to differences in the
buildings itself (type of buildings and settlement structures), like heating systems
(natural gas, electric, and district heat), air-conditioning, space heating or cooling
and water heating. These are the most critical drivers of energy consumption and
emissions in buildings in Europe (over 80% of total energy consumption, most of it
deriving from natural gas) [7]. In addition, the biggest challenges lie in the quality
of the building stock. The majority of older and existing buildings from the postwar
era need extensive retrofitting to reach contemporary standards for energy con-
sumption and emission reduction. Decarbonization strategies in the building sector
should bear this in mind and focus in a first step on the efficient use and reduction
of heating energy [8]. In a second step and with an increasing share of renewable
energies in power generation, the focus will inevitably shift toward electric energy,
due to the need of storage and sector coupling (buildings, electric vehicles, and bat-
teries). The challenge for the building sector is to find the right share between inte-
grated renewable electricity generation and using CO2 -free electricity purchase
which requires an advanced system planning, but especially an advanced system
operation management.
Many investments in the past were mainly characterized by economic require-
ments. Energy projects with a strong ecological orientation were usually less eco-
nomically successful. Therefore, short-term profitability was often given preference.
Decisions for ecological projects have been and still are hampered by political over-
regulation. This dilemma is shown graphically in Fig. 3. The goal for future energy
projects must therefore be equal treatment of economy and ecology.
The remaining of this chapter is structured as follows: Sect. 2 deals with local
energy productions with low emissions, as they should be installed in buildings for
CO2 reduction. In the following Sect. 3, the capabilities of digital services are
shown with the necessary communication technologies. It will be shown how
important reliable and cost-effective in-house networks are for digitization. Section
4 discusses the opportunities of energy communities for electricity and heat net-
works, which should play an important role for future energy supplies. Section 5
describes a concept for the installation of hierarchical energy and charging manage-
ment systems for Electric Vehicles in underground car parks and Sect. 6 deals with
the requirements profile to be investigated and the algorithm implementation.
Section 7 briefly summarizes the results and makes recommendations for fur-
ther action.
Fig. 3 Energy strategy dilemmas

2 Energy Production in Buildings with Reduced

CO2 Emissions
With increasing decentralized electricity production especially in the building sec-

tor, questions on the kind and quantity of self-generated electricity arise. The com-
bined generation of electricity and heat as well as the use of electricity for heating
offers new options.
The energy transition in the building sector is shifting from the supply of build-
ings from single and grid-based fossil sources in the past (natural gas and electric)
toward multi and hybrid supply and renewable sources. Although gas-based heating
systems (either with natural gas or with green hydrogen used in combined heat and
power plants or fuel cells) will still play a significant role in the next years, it is
inevitable that major shares of the supply will come from electricity in the future.
This is since the current energy transition has an emphasis on renewable energy
production from wind power, photovoltaic and hydropower. In addition, the shift in
the mobility sector from combustion engines toward electric vehicles is creating a
growing demand for renewable electricity supply. At the same time, home batteries
and electric vehicles constitute a highly decentralized recipient and storage capacity
for electricity from renewable sources.
As renewable sources are fluctuating in the course of the day and seasons, a
major challenge for a steady supply lies in the combination and coupling of the vari-
ous sources as well as the conversion (e.g., electricity into heat) and the decentral-
ized storage of energy (electric and thermal) [9]. Depending on buildings and
districts and their specific demand, various objectives and functions for an opti-
mized supply are possible. Objectives can range from an optimization of either the
heat or the power supply of a building or district but can also encompass a combined
heat and power supply with the option of sector coupling, meaning the various
forms of energy are transformed into each other or stored on demand.
Finally, new energy supply concepts for buildings or districts can comprise such
different objectives as grid independence, reduced supply costs or the goal to use
and trade energy on the local or regional level in energy communities.
For the development of such new energy supply concepts, the following aspects
of the development of new technologies and system concepts should be considered:
• Green Deal Contributions to reduce CO2 pollution for Living and Mobility and
for Industries,
• Enhanced Cyber Security,
• Circular Economy,
• Economic contributions to create new business and new jobs,
• Social and human impact, and
• Technology Sovereignty.
2.1 Electrical Energy Production in Buildings with Less

CO2 Emission
Figure 4 shows subjects and options to be considered for new energy supply con-
cepts in the building sector:
1. Power Supply:
• Electricity purchased from the public grid
• Electricity sourced from PV systems without storage and from the public grid
• Electricity sourced from PV systems with storage to increase self-sufficiency
and from the public grid
• Charging stations for electric vehicles
2. Heat Supply:
• Heating plant optimized
• Heating plant, buildings and residential units optimized as a complete solu-
tion with optimal heat supply
• District heating supply
3. Combined Heat and Power Supply:
• Heating plant optimized and supplemented by CHP for electricity and
heat supply
• Decentralized heat and power supply by several CHPs in the district
• Combination of sector coupling and electricity from PV systems
• Charging stations for electric vehicles supplied from self-generated power
Fig. 4 Energy supply with power and heat

Fig. 5 Solutions for decentralized energy–generation–distribution and management
For each of the chosen criteria, advanced technologies are available. The use of
technologies is depending on economy, political regulation, acceptance by owners
or tenants, and local opportunities.
For CO2-free generation of electricity in the building sector, various solutions are
developed and in operation. As shown in Fig. 5, the following technologies for CO2-
free generation of not only electricity but also thermal energy can be considered:
• Combined heat and power (CHP) production with green fuels
• Fuel cells for heat and power production
• Wind generators especially constructed for using on buildings
• PV-systems for electrical production as well as solar driven thermal production
The use of electricity in the building sector with regards to heating is mainly
applied with heat pumps for thermal production or electrical boilers for thermal
production (Power to Heat PtH).
The following options could be taken into consideration for Electrical
Energy Supply:
• Local generation (CHP, PV, and H2-fuel cells)
• Local generation and purchase from outside
• Sector coupling
• Feed in into public networks or using storages or combination
• Additional Services
–– Charging systems for Electric Vehicles
–– Storage systems (Batteries and, H2-power to liquid) self-operated or operated
by service provider (seasonal dependent)
–– Establishing Energy Communities for Electricity (economy and settlement
concepts)
• Electricity Distribution within the quarter

–– Via own network
–– Via network of DSO
• Recommendation for stepwise approaches with clear roadmap
• Economy – new business cases to be developed (Business plan versus any-
way costs)
If there are different technologies simultaneously installed and in operation
across buildings, an efficient spatially distributed Energy Management System is
needed. Figure 6 illustrates such a system using different domain-specific algorithm
packages for monitoring, control, conduct, communication, management or data
exchange and others.
Additionally, in Fig. 6, other opportunities to create new value chains are shown
considering a surplus of electricity generation in the building sector. One business
case could derive from optimized electricity supply for Electric Vehicles.
Furthermore, the need for suitably sized storage, both electrical and thermal, must
be considered.
Fig. 6 Example for a complex electric-power interoperability in an area with different building
complexes
2.2 Thermal Energy Production in Buildings with Less

CO2 Emission
The decision between decentralized or centralized generation in the real property is

a question of size and structure of users in the considered area. Depending on the
local situation geothermal (deep drillings, flat drillings or surface based) sources
could also be considered.
Heat Supply
• Local generation (CHP, solar heat, heat pumps, and H2 heat)
• Local generation and purchase from outside (heat plant or district heating or
combined)
• Sector Coupling
• Storage (local or decentralized in each building)
• Heat supply within the quarter
–– Only within each building
–– Within area district heat (cold or hot)
• Additional Services
–– Establishing of Energy Communities for Heat (Economy-settlement concepts)
• Recommendation for stepwise approaches with clear roadmap
• Economy – new business cases to be developed (Business plan versus any-
way costs)
For heating, many business cases have been developed and are in operation.
Often a supplier builds a heating plant in the area and sells heat services operation
to an area district heating network. The owners and/or the tenants in the buildings
then only hold a contract with the supplier to receive heat energy. The supplier also
takes care for the optimization of operation, fuel purchase and settlement with all
parties. Even the optimization of operation could decrease the energy consumption
significantly. Hydraulic Balancing and Low-Temperature Heating Networks are
examples. For sustainable energy savings, hydraulic balancing should be imple-
mented not just at the installation phase, but automatically and permanently during
operation.
The power dissipation of the network should be calculated and measured care-
fully since it’s regularly underestimated. Not rarely the amount of wasted energy
exceeds the amount needed for room and water heating. This is easily caused by
systems that circulate water at high temperatures (> 70 °C) 24 h/day, 365 days a
year due to centralized drinking water heating. Decentralized storage combined
with smart communication concepts can reduce temperatures significantly. For
example, pipes can be put in idle state when water temperature in all storage buffers
is still sufficient. Only in case one buffer reaches the low level all other storage buf-
fers on the same string (pipe) will be charged full at the same time. Such so-called
Low-Temperature Heating Networks require intense communication among the
Fig. 7 District buildings with networks for electricity exchange via the grid of the Distribution
System Operator (DSO) and with district storage and heat supply via central heating plant, local
heating network and decentralized heat storage systems, which can also be supplied via PtH from
the PV systems too.
spatially distributed components. The concept is illustrated in Fig. 7 and a good

application scope for a modern distributed Energy Management System.
Modern Energy Management Systems should be able to control heat supply and
power supply at the same time, as sector coupling systems require this. Another
essential point is the division into hierarchical levels. Figure 8 shows such a concept
that is used in industry. The energy systems (HVAC, batteries, and meters) are con-
nected to the Energy Management Systems in Building Area 1 and 2 via a smart grid
and IoT network and carry out their respective tasks via the installed apps. On the
district level, the results will be merged for higher level control and analysis. For
this purpose, dashboard solutions are used, which can be displayed on various end
devices such as mobile phones or laptops/PCs (see Fig. 9). The District Manager
also makes use of Internet Web services that allow retrieval of third-party informa-
tion such as weather forecast and bank holiday calendar for algorithmic decisions.
3 Digital Control of Real Estate with Efficient Processes

and Communication Concepts
The rapidly growing and decentralized expansion of fluctuating renewable energy

production increases the requirements for higher-level control systems to ensure
efficiency and security of supply. The real estate industry is becoming increasingly
critical as user and customer of such systems. On the one hand, due to the consider-
able amounts of local energy consumption and on the other hand due to local gen-
eration and storage of energy. Balancing energy consumption between energy
District Manager (central EMS)

Browser WebApp
Connector Automation Airport UI Monitoring, Control,
Abstraction Visualisation / Analyse
Time series SQL
WebServices:
BMS PV E-Auto 4Q Zähler Weather forcast
Modbus Modbus CCPP 2.0
TCP TCP HTTP UDP/seriell Holiday calender etc.
Intranet/Internet
Building Area 1 Manager Building Area 2 Manager Further Building Area Manager
Connector Automation lokale UI Connector Automation lokale UI Connector Automation lokale UI
Abstraktion Abstraktion Abstraktion
Time series SQL Time series SQL Time series SQL
BMS PV E-Auto 4Q Meter BMS PV E-Auto 4Q Meter BMS PV E-Auto 4Q Meter
Modbus Modbus CCPP 2.0 SML/OBIS Modbus Modbus CCPP 2.0 SML/OBIS Modbus Modbus CCPP 2.0 SML/OBIS
TCP TCP HTTP UDP/seriell TCP TCP HTTP UDP/seriell TCP TCP HTTP UDP/seriell
Smart Grid and loT net

(sensors and actuators)
Hydrogen Heat
HVAC Fuel Cell
Production pump
Fig. 8 Hierarchical energy management concept with building area level and district man-
ager level
Fig. 9 Example of a dashboard showing measured IoT sensors
self-generation and energy purchase can only be achieved by a powerful, reliable,

and cost-effective Energy Management System (EMS). Primary goal is the imple-
mentation of strategies allowing previously unachievable reduction of thermal
energy for heating and hot water and electrical energy for the power supply of the
buildings or integration of CO2 -free sources. In addition, a variety of other tasks
and functions in a modern property can be solved cost-effectively with the help of
digital components.
3.1 Digital Solutions in Real Estate
Digital solutions for energy management in the real estate industry range from clas-
sic purchase of energy sources to technical systems and optimized processes.
Furthermore, intelligent networking is crucial as a basis for the integrated operation
of real estate and downstream processes. The use of digital components can create
significant added value for residents and management (see Fig. 10). When planning
a digital energy management solution, the following services should be considered:
• Remote maintenance of local power generation systems (CHP and PV), local
energy storage and energy distribution (control cabinets, pumps, mixers, and
valves),
• Energy generation and consumption measurement via smart meter devices (elec-
tricity, heating, and water)
• Heating and home control with new operating concepts
• Lighting control, awning/blind control
• Tenant electricity concepts
• Indoor climate control with measurement and influence of air quality to pre-
vent mold
• Integrated billing system: delivery of data for billing of rent, incidental rent
expenses and other services
• Smoke, fire and water detectors
• Access control and security
• Charging systems for electric vehicles
• Media control (FTTH: TV, Internet, Telephone): Delivery of data for billing, if
reporting interface is provided by the operator.
Fig. 10 Important digital solutions for real estate industry

Buildings in urban districts and cities today produce a lot of CO2 for living (see
Fig. 2) and will have to be given greater consideration in future emission targets. It
is imperative to use new technologies and to provide appropriate communication
networks. Especially the installation of data networks in existing buildings is often
a big hurdle. Therefore, internal and external mobile data networks can be a cost-
effective solution. For CO2 reduction concepts in buildings, digitization plays a cru-
cial role. New digital technologies, renewable local energy production systems, and
communication networks must be deployed in the real estate sector. In buildings,
the following communication technologies should be available:
• Different mobile communication standards for data transmission
• IoT networks (Fig. 11)
• Fixed networks (Fig. 12)
The goal is to find out different architectures for a common Communication
Platform (IoT, mobile and fixed networks best merge) to manage applications for
CO2 reduction within the building. The future objective should be obtaining all the
communication services for the digitization in buildings (e.g., energy management,
monitoring, control) from one operator for a reasonable price. Local data generation
in the Smart Home/buildings/urban districts/cities from sensors, actuators and
meters should use suitable radio technologies as, e.g., Bluetooth LE, ZigBee,
EnOcean, Z-Wave, and KNX-RF.
Figure 13 shows an example of a holistic energy-efficient solution for a district
or residential building with broadband supply. The platform controls the energy
supply in the buildings according to a demand-optimized strategy, so that as little
CO2 as possible is generated and little electrical energy must be purchased from the
public grid. This results in lower costs for electricity, hot water, and heating. Data
transmission to external clouds, where the processing applications could be
deployed, should be managed by central transmission via gateways and mobile
Fig. 11 Mobile and IoT communication standards used in real estate [10]
Fig. 12 Fixed network standards used in real estate [3]
Fig. 13 Example of a holistic energy-efficient solution for a district or residential building with
broadband supply [5]
networks. Local data generation can be managed by SW platforms [5] with fast
links to different IoT radio technologies. Data could be transported to the external
cloud via fixed and mobile networks or LoRaWAN (Fig. 14). In the external cloud,
the services for digitization of buildings should be deployed based on Enterprise-IT
technology with SW solutions in a container architecture (Figs. 15 and 20).
Fig. 14 Communication structure for digitization of real estate [5, 14]
Fig. 15 5G Architecture with integrated application layer and GW to the buildings
4 Energy Communities with Decentralized Energy Exchange

of Electricity and Heat Supply Via Heating Network
with Hydraulic Balancing of the Buildings
Energy Communities (energy sharing) make use of the concepts described above,
organize collective and citizen-oriented energy measures that foster the energy tran-
sition and at the same time put citizens first. They help to increase public acceptance
of renewable energy projects and allow private investment into the energy transi-
tion. Thus, energy communities are built with the purpose to significantly support
cross-sector decarbonization. At the same time, they have the potential to deliver
direct benefits to citizens by promoting energy efficiency and reducing their costs.
Energy communities for electricity and heat offer a means of restructuring
their energy systems by using the energy generated in the own premises (energy
sharing within buildings or districts) and enabling citizens to actively participate in
the energy transition and thereby achieve greater benefits. Energy communities can
take any form of legal entity, e.g., an association, cooperative, partnership, nonprofit
organization, or small- and medium-sized enterprise. They can enable citizens,
together with other market participants, to join forces. It is also possible to invest
together into energy systems (local infrastructure as well as local market schemes).
This, in turn, contributes to a more decarbonized and flexible energy system, as
energy communities can act as a unit and operate on an equal footing with other
market participants in all appropriate energy markets [11].
4.1 Concepts for the Formation of Energy Communities

(Energy Sharing)
Basically, electrical energy can be distributed within an energy community, used

among each other, and charged via own (local) power grids, as they can be installed
relatively easily in new development areas during the construction phase or via the
Network of the Distribution System Operator (DSO), where the various buildings
belonging to the Energy Community are connected. Most applications will have to
use the network of DSOs. Therefore, it is crucial to involve the DSO in such a con-
cept at a very early stage and to develop business advantages for him, especially for
the security of the operation of the power grids. The same concepts apply for
heat supply.
4.1.1 Energy Community with Own Power Grid and Own Local Heating
Network for Heat Supply
This requires a system technology that

• supplies electricity and heat to the buildings,
• generates electricity and heat in buildings,
• records and stores electricity deliveries from the distribution grid to the Energy
Community and from the Energy Community back to the distribution grid
securely and makes them available to the DSO and billing service providers.
The quantities of energy exchanged or available for trading in energy communi-
ties shall be accounted for. To this end, aggregators (electricity traders or other
energy service providers) are involved at an early stage. An existing heating plant
supplies the buildings with heat via a local heating network. Generated electricity
(usually CHP/fuel cells or PV) can flow as tenant electricity into the buildings
(households of the energy community) or be sold externally. The buildings can draw
heat for heating and hot water, but also generate it on site, e.g., through solar ther-
mal energy or with excess electricity for heat generation (heat pump, PtH). Heat
pumps are in favor for reducing CO2 emissions, since the excess electricity gener-
ated results in the up to fourfold amount of heat (Fig. 16).The infrastructure of the
system technology used can not only serve to record reference and consumption
data but should also carry out energy management in the buildings as a synergy.
Through the resulting communication between the buildings of the energy commu-
nity, the heat distribution can actively be regulated, and, for example, hydraulic
balancing can be enforced. Even in energy communities with small local heating
networks, more than 20% of energy can often be saved per year (by means of low-
temperature local heating).
4.1.2 Energy Community with Electricity Exchange Via the Grid

of the Distribution System Operator (DSO)
The following architectures of energy communities can be considered:

1. Energy Communities that use the DSO’s network to exchange energy between
the buildings of the community. The DSO’s grid is used with electricity flows to
feed in, draw or distribute energy. The DSO, as well as the parties involved, have
access to the stored data in a trustworthy environment (see Fig. 16 “Blockchain-
Light” and Figs. 17 and 18), in which all relevant measurement data is stored that
is/has been distributed over the DSO’s network. The electricity exchange is
Fig. 16 Interoperability within an energy community controlled by an energy management sys-

tem with blockchain light communication
System cloud Platform system technology

Building complex with PV, solar thermal and PtH possibility with all heat recorded in the cloud heat
consumption supply to the buildings, heat
data consumption in the buildings,
heat supply from the heating
plant and the heat pump to
Transfer station of the the district.
Building complex with charging station Hydraulic balancing Communicates with the others
Heat accumulator
Local heating network building complexes around
with hydraulic detect heat consumption, to
Reconciliation* control and bill. Detects solar
thermal energy and PtH in the
resoective building complexes,
Building complex without PV and without PtH with charging station controls hydraulic balancing in
the buildings
Central Heating
Building complex with PV, solar thermal and PtH possibility
Central heat pump

*Cold local heating network
Fig. 17 District building with heating plant and heat pump for heating water and hot water distri-
bution via the local heating network and with solar thermal energy, PtH, and heat storage in some
building complexes and hydraulic balancing in all buildings
Enterprize IT Platform Technology

captured in the system cloud
Building complex with PV electricity supply to the buildings,
electricity consumption in the System cloud
Provides electricity and buildings, electricity supply form with all power
draws electricity the DSO to the district. Power supply and
transmission from the buildings power
Living Quarter Battery
via the DSO network. consumption
Building complex with CHP Communication with the others data
building complexes around to
detect current exchange to control
Provides electricity and and bill. Allows DSO access to the
draws electricity cloud to calculate the usage fee.
Building complex without power generation

DSO network
Distribution system operator/Aggregator
has access to the system cloud to all
Draws electricity current data transmitted via the DSO
network. The power is controlled in such
a way that the contractually defined
Building complex with CHP and PV Provides electricity, balancing group responsibility is adhered
and draws electricity Aggregator VNB to. For the use of the DSO network, paid a
(Electricity trader) usage fee. Aggregator operates district
Electricity supplier) storage. Aggregator leased parts of the
neighborhood storage to the buildings
with monthly scalability (customer
loyalty). Aggregator uses district storage
for other services.
Fig. 18 Energy community with electricity networking for electricity exchange via the grid of the
distribution system operator (DSO) with swarm storage and with district storage
c ontrolled in such a way that the contractually defined balancing group respon-
sibility is adhered to.
2. Like 1, but with the addition that several buildings of the energy community
have installed electricity storage systems that are combined to a swarm storage
system. The storage capacity may be made available, e.g., to the DSO in an
agreed share to remedy network bottlenecks.
3. Like 1, but with the addition that a third party installs a large electricity storage
in the district of the energy community. It operates the district storage and rents
out shares of the district storage to the buildings with a scalability that can be
changed periodically (e.g., monthly depending on the season). The third party
uses the district storage for further services. The third party could be an aggrega-
tor, e.g., electricity supplier or electricity trader or electricity service provider.
4. Combination of 2 and 3.
4.2 Blockchain-Light Technology for Recording and Billing
Blockchain-Light technology is used for the continuous, simultaneous, and fine-

grained (seconds to a few minutes) as well as forgery-proof recording of the distrib-
uted measured variables of the participants of the Energy Community. For example,
for the billing of grid charges, the amount of energy at all connection points to the
grid operator (electricity meter readings for purchase and delivery) in each time
interval would be the distributed measure. Blockchain-Light technology enables the
recording and fixing of all measured variables within an immutable transaction
(without the need of energy intensive “proof-of work” transactions of “classical”
blockchains), each updated in time. The immutability of a transaction is ensured by
a cryptographic hash function, whereby two consecutive transactions are also based
on the hash value of the previous and thus all previous transactions. Manipulation in
the past would immediately invalidate all subsequent hash values and thus immedi-
ately attract attention. All or just a selection of relevant transactions is provided to
all participants as an identical copy and thus enable verifiability at any time.
5 E-Mobility Concepts and Algorithms at Work
The following section describes a concept for the installation of hierarchical energy
and charging management systems for Electric Vehicles in underground car parks
(see Fig. 19). The concept illustrates efficient handling of complex algorithms for
integrating many different systems that are widely distributed across buildings in a
representative way. The same mechanisms can be applied to heating/ventilation/
air-conditioning, power generation, storage, Energy Communities and so on. The
aim of the concept in this concrete use-case is the gradual expansion of parking
spaces with charging systems without expanding or replacing the existing electrical
infrastructure and overloading the power grid. The core of the concept is a dynamic
load management based on Enterprise IT Technology system technology with load
detection in the different subdistributions, symmetrical load distribution to the 3
phases of the power grid and maximum control of the charging systems. Another
aspect is the inclusion of local renewable electricity generation in charging
management.
Fig. 19 Control of charging stations on the private distribution grid in buildings or districts to
avoid overloading the existing power grids
5.1 Starting Point of Concept Development for Charging

Electric Vehicles in Nonpublic Underground Car Parks
Primary objective is to develop a concept for the installation of charging systems in

underground car parks without overloading the installed infrastructure. In most pro-
jected buildings, the underground car parks already have three-phase (400 V) sup-
ply lines with different load capacities as well as preinstalled Schuko sockets (230 V,
16 A) at the parking spaces. Since a car on a Schuko socket can typically only be
charged with up to 2.3 kW, wall boxes with up to 11 kW should also be considered
(22 kW connections may be excluded due to the lack of government aids). For rea-
sons of cost efficiency and the rapidly developing technical standards in e-mobility,
it seems advisable to first exploit existing infrastructure as much as possible and
then, depending on emerging needs, expanding it step by step. For this purpose, a
concept is to be developed that can initially cover the demand with existing resources
through the tactical expansion of parking spaces and prevent the overload of the
system before reaching the structural limits, due to too many simultaneous charging
processes, using active controls.
The integration of Electric Vehicle charging into the further building infrastruc-
ture with CHP, heating, PV, and electricity storage should be considered as an over-
all concept. Some other parts of the necessary infrastructure (like LAN or WiFi)
may already be available in the property under consideration and could be reused.
For the new Electric Vehicles charging infrastructure, therefore, two main aspects
must be considered:
1. Connection to the mains
2. Connection to the IT network
(1) is limited to the wiring hierarchy. If there is only one central connection
point of the property, no additional measures are necessary regarding cover-
ing of self-consumption via CHP/PV/storage. However, the question of the
most cost-effective cable design arises. Here, two variants are obvious:
(a) Reuse of the single-phase lines already available at some parking spaces,
whereby these are connected to a wall box instead of a Schuko socket.
Thus, (instead of 2.3 kW limit) up to 3.7 kW of power can be charged
into the Electric Vehicles, which would mean only a charging time of a
few hours with a daily mileage of 100 km and would therefore already
be suitable for everyday use. Good wall boxes can be connected both
single-phase and three-phase, i.e., simply continue to be used when the
cable is upgraded later.
(b) Laying of new, three-phase lines to the wall boxes at the parking space
with connection to designated subdistributions in the underground car
parks. Accordingly, another three-phase electricity meter assigned to
the parking space must be installed there or the meter must be provided
(MID calibrated) in the wall box.
(2) An IT network for building equipment and appliances needs to be created or
reused from other rooms and systems. This is the key to the integration of
CHP/PV/storage systems with Electric Vehicles charging. If wall boxes are
purchased, they should be connected to this network accordingly and sup-
port a suitable charging protocol. Currently OCPP from version 1.6 is rec-
ommended. Good wall boxes for the private sector (3.7–22 kW) support this
protocol and often also come with a WLAN module. The corresponding
WiFi network may be spawned from the IT-network mentioned above, so
that no additional cables to the parking spaces would be necessary. For man-
agement reasons, it is advisable to limit the choice of wall boxes to one or a
few models.
With the help of a charging protocol, controlled by a higher-level Energy
Management System, this network can then be used to communicate between the
Electric Vehicles (for charge level, charging power, desired time for a minimum
charge), the building’s power connection (current reference power and forecast), the
PV system (current power generation and forecast) and the electricity storage (free
capacity). The management system thus regulates the controllable variables (e.g.,
target charging power of each car connected to a charging point or target charging/
discharging power of the power storage).
At the same time, monitoring is recommended to visualize the load developing
over time which forms the basis for future control of charging processes in the
next step.
Besides the basic requirements the system technology used needs to fulfill the
requirements of control, regulation, and communication safely and cost-effectively.
Figure 5 shows the system architecture, and the integrated Enterprise IT software
architecture is outlined in Fig. 20 which is based on software container technology.

It is split into
• Hardware-related containers with interfaces to low level devices, bus systems
(used in real estate) and IoT adapters (for Web services from the Internet)
• Middleware containers (holding logical and virtual views of the “real world” and
data persistence)
• Application-level containers (including Application Logic, User Interfaces, Data
Flow Processing, or Third-Party Interfaces)
The Application Logic represents the core of the Monitoring and charging manage-
ment. An internal cloud solution may also be integrated here in case external cloud
access is not desired. Further advanced functions like dashboards, use of AI applica-
tions or a Blockchain-Light connector for recording and billing the charging energy
consumption are thinkable.
5.2 Considered Points of Concept Development
The following boundary conditions and variants should be considered at least:

• Use of the existing infrastructure if possible and practicable (in terms of number
of vehicles and charging time)
• Use of the existing cabling by equipping with Schuko socket or wall box with
Type 2 connector
Fig. 20 Architecture of an energy control platform based on Enterprise IT [10]

• As evenly as possible distribution of the single-phase sockets or wall boxes to the

existing phases of the three-phase current network and control considering other
loads (such as lighting)
• Avoidance of skewed loads and overloading of today’s plant when charging vehi-
cles at the same time
• Use of a management system through electronic control and corresponding actu-
ators to enable as many simultaneous charging processes as possible
• Possibility of gradual expansion of the capacity of the facility, starting with the
underground car parks, through the connection to the main supply room to the
building’s connection
Especially for controlling the charging stations, there must be a secure digital,
bidirectional communication interface. It must be controllable via common, stan-
dardized communication protocols, so that it can exchange data with other compo-
nents within the power system (e.g., via the standardized OCPP [12] and an Internet
connection for update capability). For cost-efficient use of electricity, it should be
possible to limit the power of the charging stations or to postpone charging accord-
ing to appropriate conditions.
In addition, the charging station must be able to receive software updates [13] for
implementing future technical developments – such as a secure connection to a
smart meter gateway, the integration of energy management systems and new
functions.
Figure 21 shows a holistic approach. The electricity for the building is generated
locally via PV systems on the roof and by a CHP. A battery system stores the part
Fig. 21 Holistic building solution: Energy management and smart digitization for tenant supply
in apartment buildings with electricity, heating/hot water, charging systems for electric vehicles
and broadband supply
of the generated electricity, which cannot be consumed immediately. If the locally

generated electrical energy is not sufficient, additional electricity can be obtained
via the distribution grid. The energy management of the building regulates the elec-
trical current flows in such a way that the locally generated electricity always has
the highest priority in consumption inside the buildings. This also applies to charg-
ing the Electric Vehicles. In this concept, each charging station is connected by its
own supply cable, which is also used to measure the electricity consumption for
billing and avoiding overload supporting symmetrical phase control. The consump-
tion recorded in the meters can be stored and billed in a cloud solution. Optionally,
the user can identify himself via a web interface or smartphone app for the charging
process and retrieve information about the energy consumption.
5.3 Impact of Bottlenecks and Solution by

Distributed Algorithms
Without charging management there will be an overload in the underground car

parks quite quickly and, due to the likely 1-phase connections, also inadmissible
skewed load.
In Germany, a permissible skewed load of 20 A between the phases applies in the
“TAB” (Technical Connection Conditions) of the distribution system operator. If
the property is only connected to the distribution grid via a central access point, it is
not necessary to balance the imbalance of each subdistribution, but only the result-
ing sum at the building’s connection point to the grid. However, to make the best
possible use of cable capacities, it may make sense to balance each underground car
park segment about a uniform phase load with the help of the management system.
Overloads can thus occur in the first level at the connections of each individual
underground car park subdistribution, in the second level at the connections of the
subdistributions of the buildings of the quarter, as well as in the third level at the
building’s connection of the entire property. Figure 21 shows the topology of the
power distribution systems.
The perpetuation of the previous, unregulated operation would have the follow-
ing effect with increasing and simultaneously occurring charging processes:
1. Low utilization (already from three vehicles per subdistributor):
Consequence: Triggering of the fuse of one or more phases within the assigned
subdistributions.
Impact: All vehicles connected to these phases can no longer be charged until the
fuses are replaced. Switching on again will most likely lead to the retriggering of
the fuses after a short time.
2. Medium utilization (already from six vehicles per UV):
Consequence 1: as above
Consequence 2: Triggering the fuse of one or more phases within the UV

of a house
Impact: As above, however, all consumers of the building (lighting and appli-
ances) are without electricity until the fuses are replaced. Switching on again
will most likely lead to the retriggering of the fuses after a short time.
3. High utilization
Consequences: as above, but also with impairment of the high-current fuses of
the house connection
Impact: As above, however, all consumers of the entire property are affected.
Due to the high inrush currents, a new switch-on can only be carried out by spe-
cially trained specialists and without additional local shutdowns fuses will be
retriggering after a short time with a high probability.
In conclusion, not only a dynamic charging management system is required, but
merely a suitable Hierarchical Energy Management System that is able avoiding the
failures outlined in the bottlenecks above. It also must continue to exploit the differ-
ent connection capacities available, so that initially existing cables and subdistribu-
tions can continue to be operated, if possible, without noticeable loss of comfort for
the users.
The Hierarchical Energy Management System should permanently record the
utilization data for all technically relevant plant components and store them persis-
tently. This helps in analyzing the behavior of the plant and to identify bottlenecks
in good time for planning extensions to cables and equipment in the next step.
The utilization data is mainly recorded by the consumption meters. Due to the
digital interface, not only the electric current can be recorded, but also the meter
reading be transmitted online to the property management or the parking space owner.
The Hierarchical Energy Management System requires knowledge of the entire
structure and relationships of the physical system (the so-called plant topology) and
implements strategies that offer an optimal balance between component load, charg-
ing speed and fairness of simultaneously charging vehicles.
If buildings produce their own electricity (see Fig. 21), then a high level of flex-
ibility needs to be supported by the Management System for adding flexible strate-
gies implementing optimal and price-efficient use of the self-generated electricity.
Especially when operating electricity storage systems, intelligent integration into
the charging strategy is essential, as it can virtually expand storage capacities and
achieve significant savings both in the proportion of external energy required and in
the dimensioning of the storage system.
Finally, the energy management system is responsible for communication with
the Schuko sockets/wall boxes. In the case of sockets, this is limited to the alloca-
tion to the lowest possible loaded phase, in the case of wall boxes, the charging
power is regulated via a so-called charging protocol (OCPP) and communicated
with the vehicle.
5.4 Algorithms Are the Key for Integrating Many Widely

Distributed Different Systems
The implementation of the solution drafted above requires a powerful ecosystem for
running the distributed algorithms: Enterprise IT.
5.4.1 Enterprise IT: From Business Processes to Building Technology
Enterprise IT proves its strengths when it comes to merging data and controlling
spatially distributed components, e.g., components distributed across a property:
Using so-called software containers, which are standard in the business processes of
larger companies for a long time already, plant planners and developers can orga-
nize their work as if all sensors and actuators were converging at a central location.
Even the programming is done like in a centralized system, although in fact dozens
of spatially distributed systems work together in (often intentionally) separated
LAN and WLAN networks (e.g., for security).
The technology also comes with inherent redundancy and stability features: If
individual components or even an entire network segment fail, each node contains
enough logic for autonomous emergency operation as an island. For the considered
use case, this means that affected users of an island usually only notice a reduction
in the charging power. For everyone else, operations continue as normal. The archi-
tecture of the distributed software easily follows the physical structure of the power
grid. As a result, this avoids additional error patterns, increases operational reliabil-
ity, and often makes complex algorithms devised by the plant planner possible in the
first place. Here is an example:
5.4.2 Algorithms at Their Best
The hierarchical load balance strategy of the EMS is based on a graph structure
analogous to the cable topology, starting at the base level in all buildings’ connec-
tion room of the property down to the smallest connection level in the subdistribu-
tions of the underground car parks. It develops from the structure shown in the
Fig. 22 above. For each phase of electrical current, each level communicates sepa-
rately the load capacity currently available to the next levels of its individual
branches in the direction to the charging points. The available capacity is calculated
from the cable diameter and fuse protection values of the cables supplying it minus
the load already drawn from it. This communication continues across all levels and
ends at the lowest connection level in the subdistribution of the underground
car parks.
Finally, in the event of an overload situation, charging points are lowered in
charging power or switched off at this lowest connection level. This is done accord-
ing to the fairest possible procedure. For this purpose, the load management system
Fig. 22 Topology of the property and the power distribution systems
must keep statistics about which vehicle is charged at which charge level or, in the
case of Schuko sockets, how long the charging process has already lasted or what
percentage of the maximum charging power is still being obtained (as an indicator
of the progress of the charging process). Vehicles with a low charge level are pre-
ferred over those with a high charge level or already longer charging time. The sta-
tistics are used to calculate a sequence of reduction or shutdown events for the
charging points.
The network resulting from the tree structure or the islands in case the network
should have disintegrated into such due to disturbances, continuously determine a
“favorite list” of charging points at each level. This is calculated across all under-
ground car parks and segments of the level and results in the charging points that are
to become “victims” of a power reduction or shutdown. In the event of an overload,
starting with the first place of the favorites list, charging power is reduced in the first
run with adjustable wall boxes. If this is not sufficient, charging points are finally
switched off completely in the second run. Of course, a “favorite” is only reduced
or switched off if it occupies the overloaded electrical current phase at all. The
favorites list is processed until the required power reduction is achieved.
As soon as more power is available again because vehicles are increasingly
charged or the power consumption of the building’s decreases, the previously
switched off charging points are switched on in reverse order of the favorites list and
finally the adjustable wall boxes are increased in performance again. If the charging
process of a new vehicle begins during a power bottleneck, the favorites list is
updated accordingly. Following to the logic described, this can lead to vehicles that
have already been charged relatively full having their charging power reduced or
switched off to allow the newcomer to charge (possibly with increased power).The
iteration of the described cycle takes place in fractions of a second and thus far
below the inertial time of automatic circuit breakers or fuses. At the same time, a
similar algorithm uses a similar approach to avoid imbalances, also taking consum-
ers in the buildings into account and thus ensuring overall compliance with the
technical connection conditions (“TAB”) of the power grid operator.
5.4.3 Strategy Example: Dynamic Phase Allocation
A wall box alone never causes more than the prescribed skew load of 20 amps
according to approval requirements. However, manufacturers have hardly imple-
mented solutions that guarantee that a given number of wall boxes divide the phase
load evenly. However, the uneven load is caused by vehicles that can only charge
single-phase. This means that the appropriate phase allocation is also the responsi-
bility of the hierarchical management system. This even has the advantage that the
skew load balancing can be carried out not only within an underground car park
subdistribution, but on all levels of the tree structure and considering all loads up to
the buildings’ central connection point. Accordingly, the load management system
also keeps statistics on how differently the phases are loaded on each level. This also
starts at the buildings’ central connection, continues over all levels, and ends again
at the smallest connection level, analogous to the load balance.
Instead of a shutdown (as in the case of overload), only a phase reassignment
takes place in phases that are out of balance. This is relatively easy to do for the
Schuko sockets and single-phase connected wall boxes. Special, network-capable,
and space-saving relay groups have been developed for this purpose. With 3-phase
connected wall boxes, a skewed load balancing is much more complex. Although
this only occurs when charging single-phase vehicles charging with alternating cur-
rent, there is currently no standardized procedure for solving this problem. If such a
wall box becomes a “victim” of an intervention by the management system due to
the described list of favorites, currently only its complete shutdown remains – until
balance can be established in another way and the wall box can be switched on
again. If the customer also wants a three-phase dynamic phase assignment in the
future or if the wall box manufacturers agree on a treatment of the problem within
the wall boxes, for example by enhancing the OCPP protocol, Enterprise IT is again
key for offering fast support with the help of the modular software. This demon-
strates how physical component changes that were previously necessary for func-
tional enhancements are now increasingly being mapped to software in building
technology – on demand simply via online update.
6 General Procedure for Requirement Profile

and Algorithm Implementation
Among the above-mentioned constraints and requirements in the application

domain of e-mobility, it is recommended proceeding in the following steps for many
other domains of building automation.
The steps can be carried out at longer intervals and different speeds in different
parts of buildings. They depend on the evolving demand and the measurement data
collected.
1. Establishment of a continuous monitoring system for recording time-series of
relevant data and locations (e.g., electrical loads for each subdistribution, tem-
peratures, and pressures).
2. Identification of issues, strategic planning of improvements (e.g., expansion of
the equipped parking spaces).
3. Implementation of an active, hierarchical management for the relevant compo-
nents (e.g., electrical subdistributions, valves, pumps, and mixers) and integra-
tion with other systems
• e.g., integration of CHP, PV system, electricity storage with
• e.g., interconnection of spatially distributed components (car parks located in
other buildings).
4. Balancing of cost and benefit over time. Demand is usually changing slowly, and
technology is still evolving. Therefore, it often makes sense utilizing existing
capacities and shifting cost-intensive infrastructure investments if possible.
Placement of electricity storage as a buffer in the underground car parks includ-
ing active management is an example allowing to shift the investment into new
cabling for a substantial time. The existing cable capacity can thus be used more
evenly (avoiding peak loads) and the electricity stored directly on site in the
underground car parks can be used directly for charging vehicles. Depending on
the size of the power storage, the parallel charging capacity can be multiplied.
Especially if equipping a property with PV systems, a high synergy is created
that way, since electricity storage systems also significantly increase the share of
self-consumption.
5. Plan for long-term investments (e.g., expansion of cable capacity).
A Hierarchical Energy Management System ensures consideration of many
simultaneous processes, parameters, sensors, and actuators of a site. As a precondi-
tion, the following requirements must be met:
1. Customer goals need to be defined: the goal definition should not only include
technical conditions, but also usability aspects like intended audience for User
Interfaces or fairness conditions (see “victims” of a power reduction or shut-
down in the E-Mobility example).
2. Physical and IT structure: an IT network needs to be created for making distrib-

uted real-time communication happen. The structure should be aligned to the
physical structure of the building’s systems for avoiding additional error patterns
and increasing operational reliability.
3. Interface communication: interface standards for protocols, data direction (read-
only/read-write) or timely reaction need to be agreed between the relevant
components.
4. Data Storage, Fault Tracking and Visualization: all data should be persisted for
later analysis and fixing of implementation issues that were causing a faulty
behavior. The data can also be used for visualization of trends happening in
cycles or over longer time periods as well as a deeper analysis of correlations.
All the requirements mentioned above have been applied to the concept for the
installation of charging systems in underground car parks. They can also be applied
to other application domains in existing buildings as well as new properties and may
be gradually expanded according to new requirements over time. The Enterprise IT
used in the concept proves its strengths in merging the resulting data and controlling
components distributed over the property. In the high-performance software con-
tainers (Fig. 20), which are today’s standard in business processes of larger compa-
nies for quite some time, plant planners and developers can think and work in a way
as if all sensors and actuators were converging at a central location. As a result, use
of existing systems can be better extended up to the boundaries, enhancements
planned more thoroughly providing a larger security in investment.
7 Conclusion
This chapter describes how the residential building sector can contribute to a CO2-
reduced production and use of energy. This sector has a big potential for decentral-
ized applications including e-mobility. Another driver for savings in the residential
building sector is the cooperation and the exchange of energy between participating
parties. However, it is obvious that an efficient energy exchange for both heat and
electricity needs an advanced energy management system to supervise and steer the
energy flows.
Among the above-mentioned examples and new processes for energy production
in buildings with less CO2 emission as well as the establishment of Energy
Communities with decentralized energy exchange of electricity and heat supply
show the necessity for digitalization in the public building sector. Investments for
heating network and their hydraulic balancing between the connected buildings
develop opportunities for new business cases.
Especially the development of new energy management systems with new tech-
nologies for the public building sector is described. Furthermore, there are new
applications to be established not only in the public building sector but also in col-
laboration with the energy sector which means firstly the network operators.
Additional to the optimization with an Energy Community there are also potentials
for network conducive measures to support the network operator and to avoid con-
gestions in the network. The chapter explains in detail the integration of e-mobility
charging like connecting to both the electricity grid and an IT-network which
ensures the communication between the different components as well to partners
outside the building complex.
Nevertheless, this study shows the need for further developments like:
–– Avoiding congestions in-house by simultaneously charging of electrical vehicles
including delivering network conducive behavior of the components.
–– Output-input-optimization of generation and consumption
–– Legal and regulatory rules must be developed for a simply and speeding deploy-
ment of new energy productions and energy exchanges between consumers.
–– A market development for energy provided from and purchased for public build-
ings or Energy Communities.
–– Development of interoperability of public buildings for the optimization energy
production and consumption, e.g., including heat pumps and e-mobility charg-
ing/discharging.
–– Development of a personal-based energy optimization in buildings (e.g.,
offices) [14].
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accreditation. WPMC 2022; Conference contribution.
IoT-Enabled Zero Water Wastage Smart
Garden
Hitesh Mohapatra, Mohan Kumar Dehury, Abhishek Guru,

and Amiya Kumar Rath
1 Introduction
Irrigation began as a means of improving productivity in a natural way by increas-

ing the production capacity of the land that is available and thus increasing the total
output of agriculture, particularly in the arid as well as semiarid portions of the
world [1]. For the production of crops, the creation of assets and the expansion of
developing frontiers irrigation seemed to be essential. The success of Asia’s green
revolution was largely due to the recent rapid expansion of irrigated areas and the
accessibility and availability of new technology, such as high-yielding varieties
(HYV), fertilizers, and tube well and water extraction techniques, in the late 1960s
and 1970s. Improved access to irrigation infrastructure paved the ground for the
“modernization” of the agricultural industry by facilitating crop intensification and
input usage.
Irrigated agriculture is an important component of global food production that
has significantly contributed to global food security and rural poverty alleviation. In
addition to ensuring food security, irrigated agriculture makes a considerable contri-
bution to rural employment and livelihoods, which is crucial given the recent drop
in real-world market food prices. In poor countries, irrigation is the most difficult
H. Mohapatra (*)
School of Computer Engineering, KIIT Deemed to be University,
Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India
M. K. Dehury
Amity Institute of Information and Technology, Amity University Jharkhand, Ranchi, India
A. Guru
Department of CSE, Koneru Lakshmaiah Education Foundation, Vaddeswaram, AP, India
A. K. Rath
Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology, Burla\Sambalpur, Odisha, India

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26685-0_4
72 H. Mohapatra et al.
aspect of agriculture. The main reason for this is that there is not enough rain, which
means that more land isn’t watered.
Another critical concern is the waste of water due to the indiscriminate usage of
water resources. According to several UN reports, by 2025, over 20% of the global
population will be directly impacted by water scarcity. This will also have an indi-
rect impact on the remaining people, economies, and ecosystems on the globe.
Internet of Things-based smarter ways of water systems utilizing big data, and AI
technologies can be helpful in preventing these forecasts and neutralizing the dam-
age caused by inefficient water resource use. Management of smart water tech-
niques necessitates the combination of systems and a set of measures like monitoring,
controlling, and regulating the usage of water resources, as well as the upkeep of the
accompanying machinery like pumps and pipes. The hardware and software com-
ponents that link people to water systems include sensors, actuators, data processing
and visualization tools, meters, and, online and mobile controls.
Other critical causes of water waste during gardening include pipe leakage, over-
watering, and improper water channelization, as shown in Fig. 1. Water losses are
primarily caused by leaks, which are highly dependent on pressure and water con-
sumption [2] and contribute to the contamination of water. The traditional method
Fig. 1 Water loss during traditional gardening

IoT-Enabled Zero Water Wastage Smart Garden 73
for detecting leaks in water distribution systems is the use of acoustic sensors [3].
Other developed leakage detection techniques include ground-penetrating radar [4],
infrared thermography [5], and electromagnetic sensors. These leakage detection
methods only cover a small area throughout their surveys. Recent developments in
science and technology are helping researchers create smart water treatment sys-
tems that can detect and locate burst events automatically. The drip system is the
only way to provide water to the plant zone, which saves a lot of water. At regular
intervals of power supply, an autonomous irrigation system can deliver water to
plants as needed. There is no need to turn the valves on or off in this case. This self-
contained irrigation system will water plants at precise times based on soil condi-
tions, enhancing crop growth by collecting water and nutrients as needed.
The purpose of this work is to create a network of low-cost soil moisture and
temperature sensors for monitoring purposes which will be helpful in getting data in
real-time and watering plants accordingly. Plants and trees in smart cities must be
irrigated on a regular basis to maintain lush foliage, such as irrigation of city park
fields and roadside plants. Earlier methods included water channeling or manual
watering, both of which resulted in plant death if proper care was not taken. In addi-
tion, mechanically running water pumps for filling tanks and controlling sprinklers
resulted in a waste of water and electricity due to unnecessary activities. This IoT-
based module, similar to an agriculture or drip system, provides for optimal plant
development while conserving the area’s natural beauty. With its efficiency, the
ground-level deployment achieves the goal.
A detection module for a soil hygrometer, which is buried in the soil and delivers
a continuous measurement, can easily be used to detect the soil moisture content.
Sprinklers can be operated manually or mechanically depending on the plant’s
needs in order to achieve the desired outcomes and maintain the greatest possible
conditions for the growth of plants, and indicators to check the level of water are
used to keep the right level of water in water tanks for irrigation purposes. The Lab-
View module is depicted in Fig. 2 for a variety of situations, including controlling
and getting the status of water sprinklers, water pumps, fountain pumps, fountain
lights, and the moisture level of soil during the operation of sprinklers (rated in the
range of 1–100%), and level of water in the heavy capacity water tank. The pro-
posed model focuses on watering through an automated system. Less intervention
from humans is required as per the growth of the irrigation and agricultural system.
In this work, internet of things (IoT), an integrated model, is suggested that works
automatically based on the moisture amount of the soil. That prevents over or under-
watering problems. This leads to the conservation of water from getting wasted.
Low cost and accurate decision-making are the two unique qualities of the proposed
model. The proposed work is for transforming the conventional watering model into
a smart watering model. The proposed model has been demonstrated in the garden.
Every smart building is occupied by a garden. To make the building smart in all
aspects, we can’t ignore the garden which is a primary component of the smart
building. The proposed work helps in that aspect to make the building IoT-enabled
smart building where all the work is happening with our human intervention.
Software
Control
Soli Moisture
Detector
Weather proof Tx End

Water Level
Indicator
Network
Analyzer
Arduino Set
Smart Water Smart Garden

Sprinkler Light
DC Power
DUT
Supplies
Fig. 2 Layout of smart garden
In this paper, we have discussed the related work done in Sect. 2. The proposed
method is explained in Sect. 3. The existing challenges in IoT-enabled water irriga-
tion systems are discussed in Sect. 4. The results obtained are analyzed in Sect. 5.
Section 6 presents a few points on future directions for IoT-based smart water irriga-
tion systems and finally, Sect. 5 concludes the paper.
2 Related Work
This section discusses the previous research that has been done on the proposed
system. Water management has become more crucial for the long-term viability of
irrigated agriculture due to rising pressure on existing water allocations [6]. The
irrigation system should be intelligent, self-contained, and efficient in order to
increase agricultural water delivery, and reduce manual operations. IoT Planting for
the Elderly, which is managed by an Android application and aids in addressing
mental health and memory concerns in the elderly, in light of research on elderly
people, gardening, and IoT technology is proposed by [7]. This application can
close the digital divide between the elderly and technology by using the activity of
planting trees as an intermediary and avoiding accidents from the activity of plant-
ing trees. We have categorized the literature study based on common applications of
smart water irrigation systems.
2.1 Smart Terrace Garden
The problem, according to the study done by [8], is that systems are either too
expensive or incompatible with the app, or both. Reduced water loss is a solution to
this problem that will save time, and money, and benefit the environment. The moni-
toring node, central node, and cloud are the three key components of the proposed
system [9]. The monitoring nodes, which are fitted with sensors to monitor both soil
and the environment, are positioned across the field at various points. Using the
ZigBee network, these nodes connect and relay data to the central node. Based on a
review of the current system, it is clear that it has a number of flaws. The proposed
system can be used to address these restrictions [10]. The majority of the related
work has concentrated on different projects like a resilient smart garden, conserva-
tion of water, support systems for gardening, designing education kits for garden-
ing, and also DIY (do it yourself) projects that are based on microcontrollers. This
categorization is done according to a thorough analysis of the work.
2.2 Small-Scale Water Conservation Projects
As a hardware tool, a few microcontroller-based boards are used with extra sensors
for designing water conservation projects that are small-scale. The authors of [11]
provide instructions for water-saving systems that may be produced at home by a
hobbyist utilizing microcontroller equipment. The authors of [12] presented a guide
for conserving water which can be done in 10 to 20 hours utilizing a water pump, a
water sensor, and an Arduino UNO board. The authors of [13] describe the building
and the process of installing a microcontroller-based water-saving device that uses
a flow sensor for measuring the amount of water consumed on a tap. The technology
helps decrease excessive water wastage by turning on red LEDs after one liter of
flow. The project will take 5 to 10 hours to complete. The project presented by [14]
was carried in a vineyard and targeted lesser consumption of water for agriculture.
A microcontroller, inexpensive moisture sensors, and a solar module are all used in
this project. The authors of [15] created a basic controller for irrigation based on a
clock with the goal of allowing people with little or no IT experience to develop up
a simple and low-cost approach too closely monitor and regulate the amount of
irrigated water. A real-time clock, a microcontroller, and a moisture sensor are used
in this project. All these projects aim to employ microcontroller boards to put water-
saving techniques into practice. These innovative concepts will be used in the pro-
posed Resilient Smart Crop project whose aim is to irrigate small-scale vegetable
farms with the saved water. In [16], the authors proposed a wireless sensor network-
based system for optimally watering agricultural crops. The primary objective of
this project is to develop and implement a system that can regulate crops in the field
by using sensor nodes and a web application running on a smartphone to manage
the related data. Hardware, web applications, and mobile applications are used in
this case. The field is monitored using soil moisture sensors. Crop information and
field data are both manipulated using a web-based tool. Additionally, data are ana-
lyzed in order to forecast future temperatures, humidity levels, and soil moisture
levels that will be ideal for managing crop growth. The crop watering process is
managed using a mobile application. It supports both automatic and manual control.
2.3 Other Resilient Smart Farming and Gardening Systems
Many projects are there other than Resilient Smart Garden (RSG) whose attempts
to combine gardening with technology that uses sensors and microcontrollers for
making gardening easier and more accessible, especially to people with poor plant
knowledge. These initiatives capture data ranging from temperature to soil mois-
ture. These captured data may be utilized to improve garden care by ensuring that
plants are growing in the best possible conditions. This also makes domestic food
production easier, opens up possibilities for gardens by communities, and can also
be used in agriculture. The University of Central Florida installed Connected Garden
[17] employed sensors that are controlled by a microcontroller to capture data in an
outdoor garden. To convey data to servers, the project used a number of sensors. The
primary goal of this project was to gather information about the natural environment
as well as interactions with the garden. Temperature, light, and moisture were the
three types of natural data. The tools while being used in the garden were tracked
using interaction data. In comparison to the Resilient Smart Garden, the Connected
Garden project focused on only data collection and testing of the integrated server.
This project, without being linked to any system of irrigation, just collected data
through sensors [18].
The Arduino connects a range of digital and analog sensors, including sensors
like moisture sensor, temperature sensor, and light sensor. The system then collects
the data from the sensors in order to determine whether the associated irrigation
system is on or off. One of the goals of this project, like the Resilient Smart Garden,
was to aid in food production by maximizing the supply of water that is provided to
plants in the case of infrequent availability of resources [19]. A long-term project
that monitors the health of the garden and a fish tank is presented by the Automated
Aquaponics Design report. The term “Aquaponics” is based on the notion that an
ecosystem is created by a garden and fish in which the plants get nutrients from fish
wastes [20]. The interplay between plants, fish and bacteria is simulated in this sys-
tem. Despite the fact that the system is used to monitor two independent parts, the
project comprises of the components which are analogous to the Resilient Smart
Garden system. A microcontroller was utilized to monitor a variety of sensors as
well as a garden setting that had been modified for inside use. The controller was not
used to regulate the irrigation system, which pushed water into the garden from the
fish tank. Just the level of water in the garden bed, temperature, and level of LED
lights were supervised by the monitoring system. While aquaponics is a fantastic
endeavor, the majority of small-scale installations in Southern California can only
be used inside because of evaporation in the dry heat, which soon dries out the
fish tank.
MIT’s Open AG project, often known as Open Agriculture, aims to simplify gar-
dening and establish a more controlled environment for garden bed maintenance
[21]. The most advanced of the systems revealed is Open AG, which necessitates
substantially more hardware. Their product is described as a personal food com-
puter. A Raspberry Pi is used to keep the garden bed in a controlled environment.
Instead of natural sunlight, UV lamps are used, and sensors are used to keep track
of the garden and adjust the environment in which the plants grow. In a hydroponics
system, irrigation is also done. Rather than establishing and maintaining a garden in
the open, Open AG concentrates on doing it in a controlled setting. In [22], the
authors concentrated on the best possible use of the internet of multimedia sensors
in optimizing the process of irrigation in smart farming. Using image processing
mechanisms and machine learning methods on IoT sensors, best decision for irriga-
tion was made. This work aimed on the leaves getting yellow in color and used
multimedia sensors to detect thirstiness in plants and sprinkles in soil in the case of
smart farming. The readings obtained from sensors were used to train datasets to act
as an indicator of plant’s thirstiness, and use methods of machine learning and deep
learning to take decision for the best option. The experimental results indicate that
using a deep learning mechanism may be a better approach in the environment of
the internet of multimedia things.
2.4 Garden Monitoring Systems
In the market, some gadgets are available that are categorized as commercial-off-
the-shelf (COTS) gadgets that can be helpful for gardeners to cultivate plants.
During the search, the Smart Garden System and Green IQ Smart Garden Hub were
uncovered [7]. Gardeners may use the smart Garden Sensor to for monitoring the
environmental conditions [23]. The sensor used has the ability to track many envi-
ronmental conditions like humidity and temperature. It then analyses the data to
build a database having information about different plants and learn about the sci-
ence of soil, as well as provide advice to gardeners. The Edyn Garden system con-
sists of installing mobile apps that can run on both Android and iOS and can deliver
data about the garden to gardeners in real time via the Wi-Fi network, such as the
status of the garden and recommendations on how to enhance it. These systems are
also helpful to gardeners by allowing them to:
1. Access a database containing information on more than 5000 plants, that also
includes the optimal climate conditions for each plant.
2. Get feedback and suggestions depending on the plant’s growth stage.
3. Receive an alert message whenever a plant requires extra care.
The Edyn water valve, which can sense local weather conditions and adjust the
irrigation system automatically based on the number of plants in the garden, is
another impressive feature [24]. This can be used in conjunction with the Edyn
Garden sensor and considering the local conditions watering can be done in a
smart way. The Edyn water valve also offers a manual way of watering that can
work without using the Edyn Garden Sensor and allows users to set up a spe-
cific time and date for watering and thereby control water usage as well as.
The Green IQ Smart Garden hub is a device that leverages Internet Cloud and
mobile technologies to help gardeners cultivate plants from anywhere and at any
time by intelligently managing an irrigation system and lighting schedule [25].
All Green IQ models have been water sense approved by the International Code
Council Evaluation Service (ICC-ES), which can help is saving up to 50% cost of
current water usage. There can be 6, 8, or 16 irrigation zones depending on the
size of the restricted area. By the use of PC or mobile apps, users have the control-
ling and scheduling ability of the garden’s watering and lighting system. They can
do so from anywhere and at any time. The system connects to Wi-Fi networks to
receive weather data from the closest weather station, and after that, it calculates
how much water the garden needs. The Green IQ Smart Garden Hub is linked to
irrigation valves of a garden and lighting circuit by Wi-Fi, a mobile device, or an
Ethernet connection to control irrigation and lighting schedules. Using the Green
IQ Mobile App, users may create scheduling regimens for each irrigation zone
and channel the lighting. The Green IQ Cloud keeps track of system settings and
user programs, communicates with mobile devices, and makes updates. Both
instruments make gardening and irrigation easier, but they are not meant to be
used as teaching tools.
To automate farming and offer precision farming capabilities, the authors in [26]
suggested the use of actuators enabled by a system of smart sensors. People with
little experience with technology may find it easier to understand and maintain a
smart board system with the help of this system. This board aids in keeping track of
farm conditions and giving instructions to farm equipment. This forum may be able
to notify farmers about government announcements pertaining to agriculture. A
smart sensor network system is one of several technologies on which this system
is built.
2.5 Other Microcontroller Projects
The use of single-board microcontrollers that are quite easily programmable has
made electronic DIY projects more accessible. The authors of [27] provide
directions for making an outdoor autonomous garden watering device that mea-
sures soil moisture levels using an Arduino-UNO. The project is housed in a box
with a 12-volt battery and a screen based on the liquid crystal to show the cur-
rent moisture level. In [28], the authors have created a tutorial for a system that
is advanced and automatic for watering the garden and that will keep track of
different environmental conditions like moisture and temperature, and store
these values in a database. A 12 V battery powers the controller, which
communicates with a server via an Ethernet Shield. The authors of [29] demon-
strated the use of a hardware clock in building a data logger based on tempera-
ture. A digital card that is secure is used to save data instead of sending it to a
server. Using DIY moisture sensors, the authors of [30] demonstrate how to
construct a self-watering garden. Two nails are linked to a wire and a microcon-
troller is used to detect the amount of soil moisture. This is done by passing a
small current through the soil with one nail and measuring the resistance with
the other. The earth’s resistance decreases as there is more water present and
vice versa. The serial port is used to transmit temperature, humidity, and mois-
ture data, but no database is used to store this information. In order to show the
data and power the microcontroller, the serial port is required to be connected to
a computer. In all of these designs, an automatically watering garden is imple-
mented in a similar way. The Resilient Smart Garden has some similarities to
the DIY Resilient Smart Garden in terms of conserving water while providing a
healthy environment for plants, but it goes further.
The authors in [31] concentrated on the efficient use of water resources through
simplified irrigation on a variety of agricultural farms. A cloud and Internet of
Things-based framework is described in this paper for implementing a smart system
for irrigation. A framework is defined that is used to develop an automated system
for smart irrigation, and a mechanism is defined to effectively use excess water
generated by showers to raise groundwater levels. In real time, this developed sys-
tem can be helpful to farmers for monitoring their farms.
In [32], the authors have proposed the use of trust model which is based on the
concept of Blockchain. The proposed model has used smart contract prototype
and an Ethereum network for addressing few of the security related issues in
smart agriculture enabled by the use of IoT devices. In [33], authors have pre-
sented a Bee Smart kit which is an instructional compact garden package that may
be utilized at home or in the classroom. The instructional package is designed to
teach kids about gardening systems who are studying in grades 3 to 6 in a straight-
forward manner. The objective is to educate kids about food, plants, pollinators,
and gardens by building pollinator habitats. As the kit is simple and intended for
educational purposes, it has limited features with respect to gardening. Apart from
this, there is an aeroponic system for educational purposes that is the Tower
Gardens school kit [34] that is used to grow products quickly and efficiently using
water, liquid nutrients, and a soil-less growing medium. The kit comes prebuilt
and requires little effort for setting up. It utilizes a grow light that is portable and
that illuminates the vegetation from within without requiring any hardware setup
from the user. As part of the DIY process, the seeds are planted easily in the kit
and allowed to grow. As the kit was developed for indoor gardens, users must
maintain pH and water level since sunlight is not required. The rate of the kit is
$45.25 for a month which is costly for an education system. According to [35], to
achieve sustainability in ubiquitous computing, the research should be more
focused on the requirements of a single customer.
2.6 Other Educational Garden Kits
The authors of [36] focused on irrigation systems that have automated monitoring
facility for small as well as large estates of plantation to be able to remove the old
system that works manually. Physical quantities like moisture of soil, content of
humidity in environment and temperature can be measured with low-cost equip-
ment. It can also monitor physical factors like the presence of major pollutants in
the air like PM2.5, PM10, and CO. The dataset from previous surveys were taken in
to account for comparing with crop yield and for finding out other factors that are
useful in prediction of irrigation requirement.
3 Proposed Work
We propose a system based on rational and sustainable water resource management,

because the rising population, environmental concerns, and pressure on the food
and agricultural sectors make water even more valuable. We considered a scenario
in which a network of temperature sensors is deployed in a garden in our proposed
system. These sensors measure the moisture content and temperature of the envi-
ronment on a regular basis and send the information to the controller. The controller
activates smart water sprinklers to sprinkle water in the garden when the moisture
content or temperature exceeds a predefined threshold value. Figure 2 depicts the
proposed system block diagram. We collected data on the moisture content of the
soil using a Soil Moisture detector. An Arduino Kit is used to receive sensor signals
and transfer the data to a GSM module for transmission to the Smart City base sta-
tion. To transmit data from the Arduino Kit, a GSM Kit is used. To detect the level
of water in the tank, a Water Level indicator is used. The fountain light and sprin-
klers are controlled by a Relay Single Pole. The next subsection goes over the spe-
cifics of the component used. A temperature and humidity sensor is used to track the
temperature and humidity of soil. The soil moisture sensor is connected to an
Arduino Uno board for analog input, which helps in tracking the temperature con-
tent present in soil. In the proposed system, ambient temperature and humidity are
measured and displayed by using a combined temperature and humidity sensor with
Arduino Uno. IoT helps in connecting each and every network with a common con-
troller using which the smart watering system is controlled. This system displays
the values of several sensors on the smartphone screen or computer screen.
When a high signal value is detected, such as during an overflow or when the mois-
ture level exceeds the threshold, the relay card performs the necessary action, which
is to turn the pump off. In other words, the relay card might be considered the princi-
pal operating unit for large motors [37]. Figure 3 shows the flowchart of the process.
A simulation-based investigation was conducted with a single relay to drive up a
single motor as shown below. In order to put this circuit into practice, a large num-
ber of relay cards must be connected to operate each motor for the necessary
Fig. 3 Soil moisture

measurement flowchart
purpose. While the received signals from the base station are decoded at the master
card illustrated, which performs the necessary calculations and decoding of received
data before sending the signal to the relay card for individual motor action.
3.1 Hardware Requirements
Following is the list of components required for designing the module. Figure 4
illustrates the circuit diagram among all the hardware components. It illustrates the
moisture amount in the soil. Also, it demonstrates the set value from the user end to
measure the actual moisture content against the set point.
Fig. 4 Circuit diagram of proposed model
• Soil Moisture Detector – It is of type PIC/Atmel and is used to collect data

related to the content of moisture in the soil. The obtained results are in the form
of conductivity and resistance in-between two electrodes; higher resistance (i.e.,
less conductivity) is due to less content of moisture and lesser resistance (i.e.,
high conductivity) is due to more content of moisture.
• Arduino Kit – It is of Arduino UNO type of build and is used to receive
signals from sensors like moisture sensors or water level indicators. It trans-
mits the received signal data to the Smart City base station using the
GSM module.
• GSM Kit: (Rx and Tx) – It is of SIM 900 type of build and is basically used for
data transmission and receiving. It receives data from the Arduino module and
transmits data to the base station of the smart city to securely operate the
sprinklers.
• Water Level indicator – This indicator is an SD512 Resistive (noncorrosive)
type and is modeled to read the water level in the tank.
• Relay Single Pole – This relay node is a JQC3F 5 Pin SPDT type of build and is
used to control and do the switching of fountain lights and sprinklers.
4 Challenges in IoT-Enabled Water Irrigation
With the Internet of Things (IoT), researchers face a number of challenges. This
paper discusses a few significant issues.
4.1 Standard Protocols
A variety of sensors, controllers, and actuators must be integrated to make IoT-

based applications adaptable and interoperable, resulting in multiple challenges in
standardizing communication protocols. Further, a variety of devices and gadgets
must be integrated, necessitating the development of global standards. Major prob-
lems with the Internet of Things include the number of components required,
interoperability, communication protocols, and power sources. Communication
protocols used by various devices include MQTT, ZigBee, and TCP/IP. Despite
being the most widely used protocol, TCP/IP causes a slew of complications. As a
result, numerous studies were done in this direction to comply with the complex-
ity issue.
4.2 Security in IoT-Based Systems
When it comes to IoT, data security is critical, but because the system is evolving
and there are no developed standards, security has become a serious problem with
unclear solutions. The security of routing protocols is also a difficult and ongoing
subject, in addition to the security of communication protocols. Security must be
ensured in order for applications to be used successfully.
4.3 Connectivity
Equipping agricultural fields with internet access in developing and underdeveloped

countries may be more difficult than anticipated. Many IoT applications appear to
be connectable, but available bandwidth must be increased. In order to simplify con-
nectivity, internet service providers must broaden their geographic reach.
4.4 Reliability of the Devices Involved
With IoT, heterogeneous devices are converted into a single application, and the
selection of long-lasting devices is critical to the reliability of implementations.
When a single component fails, the entire system fails.
5 Result and Discussion
After the module is installed in the city, greater control of sprinklers, tracking of
water levels, and simultaneous operation of the water pump can be successfully
achieved, and therefore, resources such as water and electricity may be managed
and conserved to a large extent. The conventional model of watering consumes a
substantial amount of energy which is not in favor of any consumers explicitly farm-
ers. Data from both sources is collected and analyzed manually. In the given graphs,
the water consumption and electricity consumption have been validated against the
traditional models. Figure 5 illustrates the water consumption during the watering
process in both smart and conventional ways. Figure 6 illustrates the electricity
consumption during the watering process in both smart and conventional ways. Less
electricity consumption will lead to fewer tariffs. Table 1 illustrates a critical analy-
sis by considering a few explicit properties like timing, reliability, etc.
The proposed model has been validated against a few existing techniques. The
comparison has been done by considering a few explicit factors like timing, reli-
ability, scalability, fault tolerance, processor, connection type, monitoring mode,
and cost.
Fig. 5 Water consumption comparison

Fig. 6 Electricity consumption comparison
Table 1 Critical analysis between existing models and proposed model (Supporting (S) and
Nonsupporting (NS))
Fault Connection Monitoring
Models Timing Reliability Scalability Tolerance ProcessorType mode Cost
[17] S S NS NS Banana PiWi-Fi Android High
App
[14] NS S NS S ESP8266 Website Website High
[38] S NS NS S Ethernet Wi-Fi Android Medium
Shield App
[39] NS S S NS Node MCU Wi-Fi Android Medium
App
[40] S S NS NS ATmega328 Wi-Fi Android High
App
[41] S S NS NS ESP8266 Wi-Fi Android Medium
App
[42] S NS NS NS ESP8266 Wi-Fi Android High
Node MCU App
Proposed S S NS S Arduino Wi-Fi Website Low
Uno
6 Conclusion
Using IoT, an Arduino-based integrated system (smart watering system) is proposed

in this work. This system is primarily comprised of an Arduino Uno board, a soil
moisture sensor, and a temperature-humidity sensor. Soil moisture sensors detect
soil moisture levels, while temperature-humidity sensors monitor soil temperature
and humidity. The primary goal of this system is to optimize the use of water in
garden irrigation. This system is extremely beneficial to people because it automati-
cally monitors the irrigation process and is simple to implement in irrigation fields
at a low cost. In comparison to other traditional approaches, the approach focused
on this work can be considered a suitable approach in garden irrigation because it
saves time, money, and manpower.
• Energy Efficiency – Future studies should focus on reducing implementation
costs while enhancing the energy efficiency of sensing devices and sensor nodes.
Research investigations are needed to create high-performance and reliable
energy-efficient approaches for IoT-based applications.
• Improved Sensor and Communication Coverage – Large-scale applications
necessitate extensive coverage. As a result, it is crucial to conduct additional
research for developing low-price, less power-consuming, and long-range smart
sensors and wireless communication technologies are critical.
• Optimal Sensor Placement – Water quality and leak detection will both
increase with rigorous monitoring of the water supply network pipes. To
achieve this, more water quality and pressure sensors are required to be
installed at each node or pipe in the network. But due to tight financial restric-
tions, it is not possible to achieve. To address this issue, sensors are required to
be strategically placed along the pipes. Thus, placing these sensors in an opti-
mized way can be a research area with the objective to achieve good coverage
and minimize the required sensors. Highly effective and quick algorithms
should be looked into to address issues with choosing the best sensor site along
the pipe. This is done to provide the precise measurements needed for the
examination of water quality and leaks. Poor decision-making might result
from inaccurate measurements.
• Advance Data Analysis Tools – Depending on the type of application, massive
volumes of data are produced by IoT systems from connected smart devices and
sensors. This requires the conduction of further research in smart analytical solu-
tions for the generated application. These analytical solutions need to be efficient
computationally as well as power efficient. To improve overall performance,
most IoT-based smart water irrigation applications require smart analytical
solutions.
• Data Security – Traditional approaches to data security, such as encryption, are
insufficient as they are no longer able to significantly improve data security
because of rising processing power, which has resulted in the development of
numerous decoding algorithms. As a result, future IoT-based systems will neces-
sitate an advanced and dynamic security mechanism for IoT-based smart water
irrigation applications.
Furthermore, the proposed work can be extended by integrating machine learn-
ing and deep learning concepts. Automatic water monitoring behaviors can be used
based on the soil and crop quality. Water is a nonrenewable source on earth. The
wise use of this resource will be beneficial for future generations and farmers.
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IoT-Based Human Activity Recognition
for Smart Living
Anindita Saha, Moumita Roy, and Chandreyee Chowdhury
1 Introduction
Buildings are designed to supply comfortable shelter to their occupants [1]. In ear-
lier days, structures made up of wood, stones, animals’ kins, and so on were used to
serve the primary purpose only. However, buildings evolved over time from their
basic design to modern towers subject to various trends such as the durability of the
construction, modernization of the interior environment, entertainment, cost-
efficiency, and so on. Nowadays, buildings are getting more sophisticated with the
integration of technologies with the structure. This initiates the notion of smart
living [2].
In this regard, the Internet of Things (IoT) serves as a key innovation driver that
influences every aspect of human lives. IoT enables device-to-device interactions
without the intervention of human being. Hence, it promotes ubiquitous computing
intending to enhance the quality of living [3]. Nowadays, people could get facilities
of having highly advanced automatic systems in their surroundings. Smart home
appliances, smart wearable health monitoring devices, smart lighting, smoke/gas
detection, and smart gadgets have not only enriched the way of living but also pro-
vide virtual assistance to elderly people who stay alone. However, furnishing accu-
rate and opportune information on people’s activities and behaviors is one of the
pivotal tasks in pervasive computing. Hence, Human Activity Recognition (HAR)
becomes an active field of research over the decades [4].
A. Saha
Techno Main Saltlake, Kolkata, India
M. Roy
Institute of Engineering and Management, Kolkata, India
C. Chowdhury (*)
Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26685-0_5
92 A. Saha et al.
Activity recognition embraces people’s movement across different locations as

well as several activity states like walking, standing, sitting, laying down, climbing
stairs up and down, or driving, etc. to analyze human behavioral patterns [5]. HAR
can be defined as the process of sensing, recognizing classifying, and recording the
daily actions of a human being so that the intensity of those activities in daily life
could be monitored and predicted. HAR and monitoring system aim to concurrently
identify and evaluate the actions performed by a person on a daily basis through a
series of observations in real conditions of the surrounding environment [6, 7]. A
wide range of applications [2] at the individual level including Ambient Assisted
Living (AAL), well-being management, medical diagnosis, elderly care, rehabilita-
tion, robotics, entertainment, and surveillance can be benefited from the context-
aware feedback provided by HAR and monitoring system. Besides, the
community-level application of HAR can cover analysis of the aggregate behavioral
patterns through the assessment of traditional and emerging risk factors for human
populations for different demography [5]. For instance, nowadays, with the increase
in global population and aging issues, there arise corresponding concerns about the
impact of the living environment (particularly the quality of the air experienced
inside and outside of buildings) on human health [8]. Here, one of the key factors
that pollute indoor air quality is the human behavior inside a building including
routine activities like cooking and opening or closing windows or doors. The exces-
sive increase in indoor pollution levels, i.e., the levels of nitrogen dioxide and car-
bon monoxide resulting from daily activities might cause severe health hazards.
Hence, there arises a strong need to monitor these activities and understand the
correlation with the pollutant emission so that the behavioral changes of the home
occupant with indoor air quality can be anticipated. Here, advanced sensor technol-
ogy and modernized IoT devices play a pivotal role to collect various activity data
and develop HAR systems. Another relevant instance could be constant health
supervision of patients with chronic health diseases such as diabetes, and cardiac
issues. In fact, monitoring is essential for patients with dementia to identify abnor-
mal behavior and activities [4]. In this regard, daily activity recognition systems
could send an alert on any emergency condition in order to provide feedback to the
concerned caregiver or the doctor [9]. The significant application domains of HAR
have been summarized in Fig. 1.
In the past decade, vision-based techniques were mostly used to track human
daily activities where camera systems were utilized to provide the necessary context
[10]. Image sequences [11, 12] and window tracking process [13, 14] were the key
techniques used to identify human activities. Later, more sophisticated approaches
like vector quantization [15], Hidden Markov Model (HMM) [16], and 3D segment
tracking [17] are included in this field. However, with the advancements in wireless
technologies, a paradigm shift toward sensor-based HAR could be observed.
Nowadays, small, inexpensive, and low-powered IoT devices (such as accelerome-
ters, gyroscopes, and magnetometers) are widely available which can provide sensi-
tive and responsive services subject to users’ current ambience and context and thus
can be effectively utilized in several HAR applications. Even, the sensor nodes that
measure body vitals can form a network in, on, or around the human body known as
IoT-Based Human Activity Recognition for Smart Living 93
Gesture and posture analysis

Behaviour analysis
Healthcare
Applications of
Human Activity
Recognition
Sports
Ambient Assisted Living
Smart surveillance
Entertainment Robotics
Fig. 1 Representative application domains of HAR
Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) for reliable and efficient end-to-end com-
munication [18, 19]. Furthermore, in IoT-based HAR, the privacy of the person is
secured since the camera is not involved. However, the incorporation of Machine
Learning (ML) techniques [20] in both vision-based and sensor-based HAR adds
another dimension to this domain of research by improving the overall performance
and classification accuracy.
Being active fields of research, a number of works could be found individually in
both IoT and HAR domains. Although, the interrelation between these two trades is
rarely investigated. In addition, there are several inherent research challenges [4, 7]
in IoT-based HAR that create motivation for further development of new techniques
to enhance accuracy under more realistic conditions. For instance, the selection of
the attributes for estimation, the development of an unobtrusive, and inexpensive
data acquisition system to collect data under realistic conditions, and the extraction
of principal features from the collected data are some of the primary challenges to
be taken care of. Smart building scenario requires substantial attention to the issues
like location-based activity recognition, mapping the activities of multiple residents,
persons performing multiple activities at the same time, diversity of the user, and so
on. Hence, this chapter contributes an extensive survey of the state-of-the-art works
on IoT-based HAR utilizing several ML techniques. This could enable the researcher
to acquire a useful perspective of the problem domain and find further avenues.
94 A. Saha et al.
Moreover, the case study demonstrated in this chapter could contribute to the base-
line experimentation and outcome analysis in this field of research.
Consequently, this chapter first discusses the background of HAR in Sect. 2.
Section 3 illustrates the role of IoT in HAR including the research challenges and
various performance metrics. State-of-the-art works are analyzed thoroughly in the
following Sect. 4. The next section (i.e., Sect. 5) presents a case study in brief.
Finally, Sect. 6 concludes.
2 Background of Human Activity Recognition
Because of its substantial and large-scale contribution to various applications such

as remote healthcare, surveillance, and fitness monitoring, HAR has turned out to be
one of the most in-demand research areas in literature in the recent past. HAR refers
to sensing, identifying, classifying, evaluating, and monitoring actions carried out
by individuals on a daily basis, in real time, to provide context-aware feedback for
several medical applications that include elder care at home, postsurgery trauma
rehabilitation, detection of falls in elders or differently abled individuals [21].
Furthermore, HAR has been effective for patients with chronic health conditions
such as heart disease, diabetes, or obesity who need monitoring on regular basis to
detect abnormalities.
Traditionally, HAR was highly dependent on vision-based techniques using
image sequences [12] or window tracking processes [14], which had their own
limitations such as feature point selection or body motion modeling. With the
advancement in technology, several methodologies like vector quantization for
converting time-sequential images to image vectors or applying statistical meth-
ods like Hidden Markov Model (HMM) [16] evolved, which was found effective
in recognizing human activities efficiently. Further research covered the way for
3D tracking approaches such as the proximity space method [22] or through
3D-shaped models of collision and occlusion [23]. In the recent past, with the
advancement of pervasive and ubiquitous computing, a continuous improvement
in existing technologies has been exhibited worldwide. Wireless technologies
with sensors play an essential role in activity recognition. For instance, nowa-
days, wearable sensors like accelerometers are popular ways to recognize and
monitor daily activities [4] as they are small, inexpensive and low-powered
devices. In the 1990s, a few works were found in this field of research that
explored several aspects. The authors in [24] described the development of a tri-
axial accelerometer and portable data units for activity recognition. Furthermore,
the suitable placement of accelerometers for posture detection [25] or generating
context awareness by analyzing accelerometer data [26] was also found to sup-
port literature in this domain.
HAR approaches are strongly dependent on data and analysis of the same for
prediction. Hence, in the last decade, ML has become a popular choice of research
due to exponential progress in computing and communication techniques to be
implemented in various applications across the globe. Being a subcategory of

Artificial Intelligence (AI), ML encompasses several algorithms that learn from
benchmark datasets prepared through past experiments and make predictions for
future applications. Through ML, machines can learn the patterns in a structured
dataset with thousands of rows, to build a model without being explicitly pro-
grammed. A substantial amount of human intervention is required in performing
essential preprocessing of a raw dataset through feature engineering, using heuristic
techniques, and hence have profound applications in fraud detection, pattern recog-
nition, recommender system as well as in HAR. [4] Here, physical activities are
recognized by exploring the standard ML algorithms such as K-nearest neighbor
(KNN), Decision Tree, Random Forest (RF), and Naive Bayes (NB). Besides, prob-
abilistic models like HMM are found in the literature to extract features from col-
lected data and multimodal sensor data analysis. Vision-based activity recognition
is well supported by traditional ML algorithms such as Support Vector Machine
(SVM) [27] from sequences. Research has also shown that human activities may be
recognized either using a single camera [28] or even multiple cameras [29].
When it comes to sensors, ML techniques have exhibited significant improve-
ment in the overall performance of the predictive analysis. In early works like [30],
detection of abnormal activity was possible from wearable sensors through a two-
phase ML approach with SVM and Kernel Nonlinear Regression (KNLR), whereas
in [31] the authors have proposed a method to combine inertial sensors and an opti-
cal motion capture system, to perform activity recognition using Neural Networks
and Bayes theorem respectively. The use of a hierarchical weighting decision
scheme as proposed in [32] claims to significantly improve robustness and scalabil-
ity by taking advantage of the majority voting model. Literature works with multi-
ple classifiers like KNN, SVM, RF, and Gaussian Mixture Models were proposed to
perform predictive analysis from multiple wearable sensors at different body parts,
as depicted in [33]. A few ensemble classifiers are also used in this area [34] to
improve the accuracy of a single classifier used otherwise, retaining the generaliza-
tion capability of the same.
With the passing of time, Smartphones, equipped with sensing and communica-
tion facilities with embedded accelerometers and gyroscopes, provided a better way
to monitor human activities, especially in the last decade. In such mobile devices,
data can be collected, processed, through appropriate applications installed, and
communicated to remote servers for analysis and classification. This eliminates the
need of wearing a separate wearable sensor at the hand of the chest or on belts [35].
Most standard ML algorithms work effectively on Smartphone collected data as
exhibited in [36, 37], and even Neural Networks [38]. Activities to be recognized
may be either static (sitting or standing) or dynamic (walking or running). However,
the variation of hardware configuration or the position of the smartphone might
remain a concern as discussed in [39]. However, this can be handled smartly with
appropriate feature selection and the choice of a suitable ensemble classifier that
primarily predicts on the basis of majority voting.
To understand the concept further, the basic framework of HAR for the appli-
cation of a standard ML model may be summarized in Fig. 2. Data gets collected
96 A. Saha et al.
Fig. 2 Basic framework

of HAR
Dataset
Data Retrieved
Data Preprocessing
Feature Extraction
Feature Selection
ML
Modeling Algorithm
Model
Development
Evaluation
through sensors (wearable or smartphones) and cleaned to remove noise present

in it, while collection. For example, data cleaning can be done with a bandpass
filter that removes both noise and low-frequency gravity components present in
accelerometer data along with linear acceleration. Then the data can be seg-
mented into windows (overlapping or non-overlapping) for temporal pattern
analysis. The next step is to perform feature extraction on these segments to
represent the raw data into a feature vector. Accordingly, it becomes a training
sample for the ML model to be trained over in the subsequent step. Feature selec-
tion might be performed as well at this stage so that prediction accuracy may be
improved. The trained model is then tested with data points and could be deployed
for real-time recognition of activities.
Along with ML, Deep Learning or DL has emerged in recent times as a step
ahead of the former, which is based on the operational methods of the human
brain, that can handle larger datasets to solve complex AI problems requiring
more computational time. The term “deep” in deep learning (DL) refers to the
depth of these numerous hidden layers in ANNs, and the quantity of hidden
layers in a Neural Network rises to permit the composition and recombination
of basic input data into complex features [5]. DL can handle unstructured data-
sets unlike ML and can deal with a dataset with millions of instances in it and
this huge volume of data enables it to get trained appropriately as it incorpo-
rates an increased number of hidden layers in between. One of DL’s main ben-
efits is the automatic extraction of high-level features, which can enhance the
effectiveness of HAR. With an enhanced self-learning capacity, DL can sup-
port parallel and distributed algorithms with advanced analytics and scalability
for predictive purposes. Some of the popular applications of DL can be seen in
Image Processing, Natural Language Processing, Object Recognition,
Computer Vision, and many others. In recent times, Deep Learning (DL) has
also gained substantial importance for Smartphone-based activity recognition
as it can auto-extract useful features from the data for improved accuracy and
better prediction with respective models. The authors of [40], have proposed a
Deep Convolutional Neural Network that exploits the time-series signal with
alternative convolution and pooling layers and auto extracts basic as well as
complex features from the input data. Further, literary works like [41] utilize
vector magnitude accelerometer data to reduce rotational interference in raw
data in a one-dimensional (1D) Convolutional Neural Network (CNN)-based
model. Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), another popular DL model can
detect human activities by learning features from raw accelerometer data with-
out generating hand-crafted features [42]. Authors have also considered
Bi-directional LSTM [43] and stacked LSTM [44] to predict activity from
Smartphone data.
There are few literary works on the combination of CNN-LSTM [45] where
the former learns complex activity patterns and the latter effectively capture tem-
poral information of the time series data generated from accelerometers. It is
observed that sensor data collected from smartphones produce high-dimensional
feature vectors out of which few contribute to the actual identification process.
This leads to a curse of dimensionality. Hence, works like [46] use the standard
Sequential Forward Floating Selection (SFFS) method to select optimum fea-
tures from the feature vector to be fed into a Support Vector Machine (SVM) for
the classification of activities. Besides, few works make use of a dimensionality
reduction technique to address this problem. For instance, in [47], the authors
proposed Fast Feature Dimensionality Reduction Technique (FFDRT) that
reduces the feature vector of standard datasets with less time consumption and
fed it as input to the RF classifier for accurate predictions. Recently, metaheuris-
tic approaches such as Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Particle Swarm Optimization
(PSO) have given a new dimension to the research of HAR by improving feature
selection, feature extraction, and hyper-parameter tuning of data collected from
smartphones or wearable sensors [5]. This has drawn the attention of researchers
to a considerable extent.
98 A. Saha et al.
3 IoT in Human Activity Recognition
The IoT paradigm has enabled the availability of different low-cost sensing devices
that can collect activity data for HAR-based applications. These devices can protect
the privacy of the residents as the camera is not utilized, secondly, these devices do
not require any present Smart Home infrastructure. That’s why such devices are
becoming a more convenient option for context-aware services. The architecture of
such IoT-based HAR system is typically based on a server-client setup. The client is
the IoT device that implements the sensing layer as designated in Fig. 3. Such
devices are connected to a server through the Internet connection as indicated by the
Network layer in the figure. The server implements the data preprocessing and
application layer where actual data analysis takes place. The application layer in the
figure lists the different services that can be provided by such an architecture. In the
following subsections, there search challenges and performance metric are dis-
cussed that builds the required perspectives for reviewing the state-of-the-art works
on IoT-based HAR systems for smart living applications.
Fig. 3 Layered architecture of IoT-based HAR system

3.1 Research Challenges
The main research challenges that are commonly faced by researchers are listed as
follows.
• Handling grossly labeled data: Normally, a user does not perform an activity in
isolation. Rather, a sequence of basic activities is performed by a user as part of
a composite activity. For instance, a sequence of stand and walk can be per-
formed while walking in the queue. Consequently, precise labeling of each indi-
vidual activity could be difficult. In fact, the duration of standing and walking
while walking in the queue may differ from user to user and/or from time to time.
Thus, the learning techniques to be applied should be able to handle such data
annotations.
• Utilizing data from multiple sensors: HAR data could be collected from vari-
ous sensors, such as an accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer. Moreover,
a user is not expected to carry one dedicated device always. Thus, data is col-
lected from different sensing devices each having a different calibration. This
device diversity could be challenging in interpreting data for the fusion of fea-
tures. A trade-off between the number of sensors deployed and the efficiency of
the system to collect data for activity recognition is critical.
• Diversity of users: The individual gait of users varies from one another as the
activity patterns depend on the age of the users and/or their physical conditions.
Depending on the habit, the way they carry the sensing device may also vary. For
instance, a smartphone could be treated as a potential sensing IoT device. A
smartphone can be carried at hand, or kept in a trouser pocket or shirt pocket.
Now, if the smartphone is kept closer to the center of gravity, such as the trouser
pocket, better accelerometer data is going to be collected. On the contrary, when
it is carried at hand, noise builds up. Thus, the usage behavior of the users also
affects the quality of the data collected. Thus, the features should be extracted
from the dataset in such a way that it mitigates this variance of usage behavior.
3.2 Performance Metric
The effectiveness of the HAR system depends on various factors [4] such as the
activity set, the quality of the training data, the feature extraction technique, and the
learning algorithm. For instance, activities like sitting, walking, and standing still
are relatively easier to distinguish than to differentiate between more complex ones
such as watching TV and eating. The recognition performance is quantified in terms
of some standard metrics [4]. Accuracy, recall, precision, F-measure, Kappa statis-
tic, Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves, etc. are prevailing among
them. In HAR, the results obtained through applying the classification algorithm are
organized as confusion matrix 𝐶𝑚×𝑚 for a classification problem having 𝑚 classes.
100 A. Saha et al.
Predicted Predicted
positive negative
Actual True positivee False negativee

positive (ttp) (ffn)
Actual False positivee True

Tru negativee
negative (ffp) (tn)
Fig. 4 Structure of the confusion matrix for binary classification problem
Here, each element 𝐶𝑖𝑗 is described as the number of instances from class 𝑖 which is
classified as class 𝑗. For instance, the structure of the confusion matrix for binary
classification problems is depicted in Fig. 4. Here, the confusion matrix can have the
following values:
• True Positives (𝑡𝑝) – The number of positive instances classified as positive.
• True Negatives (𝑡𝑛) – The number of negative instances classified as negative.
• False Positives (𝑓𝑝) – The number of negative instances classified as positive.
• False Negatives (𝑓𝑛) – The number of positive instances classified as negatives.
Few standard metrics are defined as follows:
1. Accuracy – It is defined as the number of correctly predicted data points subject
to all the data points. For instance, in the case of a binary classification problem
as mentioned earlier, accuracy can be defined as follows [4, 48]:
t p tn
Accuracy
t p t n f p fn
(1)
2. Precision – It can be described as the quality of the positive prediction made by
the model. In other words, the positive predictive value refers to the ratio of cor-
rectly classified positive instances to the total number of instances classified as
positive [4, 48]. Hence,
tp
Precision
t p fn
(2)
3. Recall – It is evaluated as the ratio between the numbers of positive instances

correctly classified as positive to the total number of positive samples [4, 48].
Hence,
tp
Recall
t p fn
(3)
4. F-measure – It is quantified as the harmonic mean of precision and recall where
each is given equal weight [4]. Thus,
2 Precision Recall
F measure
Precision Recall (4)
5. Kappa statistic – This metric compares an observed accuracy with an expected
accuracy obtained through the agreement with a random classifier. Apart from
performance evaluation of a single classifier, the kappa statistic is also useful to
assess classifiers among themselves [48].
6. ROC curve – It is a graph that shows the performance of a classification model
in terms of two parameters, i.e., true positive rate (𝑡𝑝𝑟), and false-positive rate
(𝑓𝑝𝑟) [48]. True positive rate is defined similarly as recall. The false positive rate
can be defined as the ratio between the number of negative instances classified as
positive to the total number of negative samples. Accordingly,
fp
f pr
f p tn
(5)
7. Negative predictive value – It gives the probability that the predicted negative
instance is a true negative [4].
tn
Negative predictive value
t n fn
(6)
8. Specificity – It is defined as the ratio of correctly predicted negative instances
with respect to the total number of negative samples [33]. Hence,
tn
Specifity
tn f p
(7)
4 State-of-the-Art Works
A significant amount of literary work has been conducted on IoT-based HAR in the
last decade including the emergence of Embedded Intelligence (EI). Some of the
relevant state-of-the-art works are presented in Table 1. Guo et al. in [49] focused on
102 A. Saha et al.
Table 1 Some of the relevant state-of-the-art works on IoT-based HAR

Types of
Existing Learning devices Types of sensor Data sets
work methodology used used used Accuracy Remarks
[51] ANN Wear able Accelerometer Collected 99.96% Recognizes
devices &Heart Rate Data set body postures
Sensor as well as
general human
activities like
standing,
walking etc.
[52] N/A Smart Accelerometer Collected 100% Identifies intake
watch Data set (putting of medications
pill through several
inside relevant
mouth) activities.
[53] SVM and Smart- Accelerometer Collected Greater Recognizes
DT phone and & Proximity Data set than 91% standing,
Smart Sensor walking,
watch sitting, lying in
a noncontrolled
environment.
The effect of
transition from
static to
dynamic
activities was
observed.
Proposes a
novel method
for data
preprocessing
based on DCT.
[54] Rule Tree Wearable Heart rate, Collected 95.83% Recognizes
classifier (Bio Respiration Data set standard
C4.5, Harness 3) Rate, activities in a
Bayesian Skin pre-established
classifier Temperature, order. PCA is
Posture used for feature
Accelerometer selection.
[55] Autoencoder Wi-Fi N/A Collected 97.6% Recognizes
Long term enable IoT Data set activities like
Recurrent devices walking,
CNN sitting,
watching TV,
etc. in a device
free
environment
(no wearables/
no
Smartphone).
(continued)
Table 1 (continued)
Types of
[57] Dictionary IoT devices N/A Collected 70% Identifies both
learning deployed Data set low level as
combined within well as high
with home level and low
rule-based level activities.
reasoning The former is
inferred from
signal
fluctuations,
and the latter is
inferred from
the former
along with
object usage
and location
information.
[58] 1D CNN, 2D Smart- Accelerometer& WISDM1 96.4% Recognizes
CNN, phone and Gyroscope activities
Multiheaded Smart without any
CNN, watch requiring
SVMKNN, manual feature
& RF engineering.
[2] CNN Wi-Fi Accelerometer Collected 97% Identifies
enabled &Gyroscope& Data set standard
wearable Magnetometer activities with a
sensor relatively small
dataset which
enables to
implement the
system
calibrated on
different class
of problem.
[59] LR, DT, Wearable Accelerometer Collected 92% Activity
SVM device, Data set Recognition is
Sensor-Tag performed with
IoT device tradeoff
between
constrained
computational
capabilities of
IoT devices and
relatively
power hungry
communication
system.
(continued)
104 A. Saha et al.
Table 1 (continued)
Types of
[60] LSTM Smartphone Accelerometer UCIHAR Greater Recognition of
CNN and smart & Gyroscope [66], than 90% activity is done
watch WISDMa with fusion of
temporal and
spatial sensor
data
[61] LSTM Wearable Accelerometer, Collected 95% Applies
sensors& Sensors like Data set semisupervised
Smart GPS, magnetic learning for
phone field, sound Activity
level, and light recognition
capturing with DL
context models for
information classification
and DQN
technique to
solve the
labeling
problems.
[62] LSTM IoT devices N/A Collected 92.29% Activity
deployed Data set recognition is
within done without
home the need of any
wearable
devices or a
smartphone.
Ensures privacy
for subjects.
[63] Calibrated N/A Environmental UCAmI 80% Activity
RF wireless sensor Data Set recognition
device, [67] decision is
Actuators taken from
analyzing data
with complete
knowledge of
uncertainty in
IoT system and
integrating the
same with ML
outputs.
(continued)
Table 1 (continued)
Types of
[64] One Class IoT device N/A Collected 89.52% The system is
SVM Data set robust, works
well under the
conditions of
uncertainty, and
specifically
work when
there are
missing value
in the acquired
data, which is
common in real
time activity
recognition.
[65] Bi-LSTM Wearable Accelerometer, UCIHAR, Greater Recognizes
sensor Gyroscope, USCHAD than 90% activities using
Magnetometer [68] deep learning
and deploying
CGO algorithm
for optimizing
hyper-
parameter for
improved
recognition.
[69] KNN, RF, Smart Accelerometer UCI HAR 98.03% Compares
NB, DT phone & Gyroscope (SVM) different ML
models to
choose the best
in benchmark
datasets. SVM
outperforms
others as it is
able to find a
minimum
hyperplane for
classifying
input data into
different
categories.
a
https://archive.ics.uci.edu/ml/datasets/WISDM+Smartphone+and+Smartwatch+Activity+and+B
iometrics+Dataset+
106 A. Saha et al.
revealing the behavior of individuals based on spatial context and social patterns
with urban dynamics by mining the digital remnants left by individuals during
their interactions with “smart” things. Smart homes can be considered to be the
most significant applications of IoT as the activities of the users generate a tre-
mendous amount of data from the interaction with the devices. Wu et al. in [50]
processed these data and modeled them as useful contexts for activity recognition.
Here, spatial features along with temporal features are clubbed to discover more
useful recognition patterns through semisupervised learning.
IoT has always been worthwhile to improve the quality of living, especially for
the elderly population of the world, through regular assessment of their health status
and timely treatment in case of abnormalities. In [51], Oniga et al. have designed
and implemented wearable devices embedded with sensors that form is cognition
system for simple activities like standing, sitting, walking, or running using neural
networks, especially for disabled individuals. IoT technologies are effective in mon-
itoring patients in real-time to acquire sensitive data that can be subsequently ana-
lyzed for medical diagnosis. Interesting work was proposed by Serdaroglu et al. in
[52] where a medication intake adherence framework is designed with IoT for for-
getful patients, especially elders with direct recognition of the medicine intake
activity using smartphones, instead of indirect indicators. Furthermore, Amroun
et al. introduced accurate activity recognition using IoT even in a noncontrolled
environment using smartwatches and smartphones and classifiers like SVM and DT
in [53]. The authors also proposed a novel method of data preprocessing based on
Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) and observed the effects of the transition of the
user from one activity to the other and also the change of the location of the movable
device like a smartphone.
IoT-based HAR can be a boon for patients with chronic diseases that require
regular monitoring and instant actions in case of health aberrations. Castro et al. in
[54] developed a novel system by joining the benefits of HAR and IoT. The pro-
posed system uses specialized hardware that includes sensors to monitor vital sig-
nals and implements two standard classifiers such as Naive Bayes and Decision
Tree for recognition of activities. The IoT component integrated into the system
performs tasks including remote consultation, feedback while and after activity, and
the control using a remote monitoring component with remote visualization, remote
data access as well as programmable alarms. Next, Zou et al. in [55] proposed deep
learning-based HAR schemes that can identify activities automatically from Wi-Fi-
enabled IoT devices. A novel Open Wrt-based IoT platform is developed to collect
CSI data. An innovative deep learning framework was designed with Autoencoder
Long-term Recurrent Convolutional Network, to extract high-level salient features
and figure out temporal dependencies among data for recognition of activity.
Research reveals that the rapid emergence of IoT-enabled technology is effec-
tively facilitating activity recognition to open and uncontrolled yet connected envi-
ronments with the help of wearable devices and mobile applications. Qi et al. in [56]
explored new research trends and challenges in physical activity recognition and
monitoring in an IoT environment. The authors demonstrated how IoT sequentially
incorporates the sensing layer, network layer, processing layer as well as application
layer of communication in a distinct manner. The rising trend of IoT is continuously
pushing concepts like ambient intelligence more toward progress by expanding the
scope and scale of the healthcare domain at a substantial level. In this regard, Yao
et al. in [57] proposed an end-to-end web-based monitoring system catering to per-
sonal well-being to monitor activities and abnormalities in IoT-based Smart homes.
The authors designed a hybrid recognition framework that unifies data and knowl-
edge driven techniques to observe multilevel activities in real-time in Smart homes.
Here, a scalable IoT-based middleware was developed for seamless connectivity,
learning of information as well as management of ambient sensors to continuously
track the activities of residents to detect abnormalities if any and take timely actions
if required.
Existing HAR works are mostly dependent on shallow feature learning tech-
niques that make their implementation a challenge in real life. Zhang et al. in [58]
catered to this issue by employing multi-head CNNs that extract and select appro-
priate features for better predictive analysis. This makes the HAR process more IoT
compatible as it doesn’t require manual feature engineering and automatically
learns deep features for classification purposes. Bianchi et al. in [2] gave a new
direction to the IoT-based HAR system. The authors proposed an innovative system
that integrates Wi-Fi enabled Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) that can send col-
lected data to a remotely located cloud service through the Internet across the home
router. Here, the CNN model was utilized to provide information about abnormali-
ties in daily activities. The authors observed that IoT generates a humongous vol-
ume of data which is difficult to process for a cloud-centric approach. Consequently,
it results in poor network latency and causes fatal outcomes in real-time applica-
tions like healthcare. Edge computing is found to address the issue to a certain
extent by processing data at the source (IoT devices) only but that often fails to
make a trade-off between computational complexities and onboard processing.
Furthermore, an approach was proposed by Samie et al. in [59] to address the
issue by a hierarchical classification approach. Here, in the first layer, a lightweight
classifier works directly on IoT devices and decides whether the computations can
be carried away locally or need to be offloaded to the gateway. The second layer
classifier does the remaining work, based on the decision made by the former.
However, deep learning is undoubtedly a suitable choice for the huge amount of
data generated by IoT devices which has been explored by many researchers in the
recent past. Abdel et al. in [60] presented a novel supervised model for fine-grained
recognition by exploiting the LSTM classifier. It was designed by modeling long-
term temporal representation of data generated from the raw collection as well as
using an advanced residual network to extract features hidden into a high-
dimensional dataset. The work combines two major DL models such as LSTM and
CNN where the latter is incorporated for multichannel spatial fusion. Whereas Zhou
et al. in [61] focused on semisupervised deep learning frameworks in the IoT envi-
ronment that efficiently and effectively analyze grossly labeled data for training the
classifier. The system incorporates an auto-labeling module based on a deep
Q-network with a novel distance-based reward rule, along with an LSTM
108 A. Saha et al.
classification module, that deals with sequential motion data for detecting fine-
grained patterns in the collected data. Moreover, Khan et al. in [62] introduced a
differential CSI-based HAR model proposed using an LSTM classifier in the IoT
environment. Here, the Channel State Information (CSI) is sensed by IoT devices
that not only mitigate the background noise of the signal so eliminate the need for
traditional wearable sensing the privacy of the person being monitored. The LSTM
model extracts useful features automatically and classifies human activities from
differential CSI. As IoT deals with a huge volume of data from different types of
sensors, the complexity of the system increases in different dimensions such as
heterogeneity, timeliness, and scalability.
Hussain et al. in [63] proposed a risk-based decision-making framework for IoT
in the domain of HAR that mainly focuses on minimizing risk and improving
decision-making particularly in critical scenarios like healthcare. The proposed
framework integrates data- and knowledge-driven approaches in decision making
under the IoT environment that concentrates on bridging lower-level data-driven
activity recognition and higher-level knowledge for explanation and classification
as well as handling uncertainties. Besides, Gope et al. in [64] designed an enhanced
system that is based on Physical Unclonable Function (PUF) authentication scheme
and a fault-tolerant decision-making scheme for IoT-based healthcare as well as
activity recognition. It also encompasses the conditions of uncertainty as well as
security features for the purpose. Al-Wesabi et al. demonstrated how human actions
are captured in a sensor-enabled IoT environment in [65]. The authors proposed an
Optical DL technique that uses a Mobile Net-v2 model to extract features and a
Bi-LSTM classifier whose hyper-parameters are being fine-tuned by the Chaos
Game Optimization algorithm in order to improve recognition performance.
The above discussion summarizes substantial literary work on IoT-based HAR;
however, several open research areas such as feature selection using metaheuristics
approaches like Genetic Algorithm or further research on hyperparameter tuning of
standard Deep Learning classifiers may be explored by interested researchers to
enhance the contribution in this field. Table 1 provides an outline of the above dis-
cussion in a precise manner. It is observed that most of the authors in the above-
mentioned literary works, haven’t used Standard datasets, apart from the few
mentioned in the table, and worked on datasets prepared by collecting data through
mobile apps, whose access is not been provided publicly. Hence, the term “Collected
Dataset” is used to complete the table.
5 Case Study
In order to exhibit the implementation of HAR, we hereby present a case study that
shows how standard human activities such as walking, standing, sitting, climbing
upward and downward, and laying can be identified and predicted, in real life, with
the help of benchmark datasets available in the public domain for research purpose.
This dataset is available on a public platform and is already preprocessed, with a
train test split of 70–30 respectively. A number of researchers have implemented

HAR by comparing the performance of several standard ML classifiers and analyz-
ing them for better predictive calculations. Datasets play a pivotal role in such per-
formance analysis as the choice of the same may exhibit varied results in general.
Broadly, datasets may be classified into two categories (i) Benchmark datasets and
(ii) Datasets prepared by the researchers collected through applications such as
G-Sensor or others. In this chapter, we have presented a case study of the implemen-
tation of HAR through a standard benchmark dataset called UCIHAR,1 which is
commonly used by researchers for this purpose. The main objective of this case
study is to provide an insight into the basic evaluation of performance on several
learning algorithms (both ML and DL) on a standard dataset as well as the perfor-
mance analysis of the same for naive readers and upcoming researchers. The accu-
racies of prediction for different ML and DL models have been computed and
compared, along with hyperparameter tuning of ML classifiers like SVM has been
conducted with different kernels to develop a holistic idea of predictive analysis.
5.1 Description of the Dataset
The dataset chosen for implementing HAR is UCI-HAR [66], which is a 6-activity
dataset containing three-dimensional raw (x, y, z) signals obtained from a Smartphone
embedded accelerometer and gyroscope strapped at the waist of a user. During the
experiment, 30 users or subjects were selected within an age limit of 19 to 48 years,
and they were allowed to perform 6 activities such as sitting, standing, laying, walk-
ing, walking upstairs, and walking downstairs. Fig. 5 shows the graphical represen-
tation of the samples for each activity in the dataset.
The Smartphone chosen was Samsung Galaxy S II and using the embedded
accelerometer and gyroscope, 3 axial acceleration and 3 axial angular velocities
were captured by the team at a constant rate of 50 Hz. The obtained dataset has been
randomly partitioned into two sets of “Train” and “Test” where 70% of the subjects
were selected for the former and the remaining 30% contributed to the latter. Further,
the sensor signals were preprocessed through noise filters and sampled in a specific
sliding window of 2.56 s with a 50% overlap which pertains to 128 readings/win-
dow. The total acceleration signal obtained from the sensor of the Smartphone had
two components of body motion as well as gravitational, which were separated
using a low pass filter like the Butterworth filter. From each window, a set of feature
vectors were obtained by calculating the variables from the time domain such as
mean, median, min, max, etc. as well as the frequency domain. The preprocessed
data is fed into standard ML and DL classifiers as shown in the subsequent sections.
A brief description of the database is shown in Table 2.
1
https://archive.ics.uci.edu/ml/datasets/WISDM+Smartphone+and+Smartwatch+Activity+and+B
iometrics+Dataset+
110 A. Saha et al.
Number of samples for each activity

2000
1750
1500
1250
count
1000
750
500
250
0
G
S
G
IR
IR
IN
N
IN
YI
KI
AR
TA
TT
D
LA
AL
AN
PS
SI
ST
W
ST
_U
N
W
G
O
N
_D
KI
AL
G
N
W
KI
AL
W
activity
Fig. 5 Graphical representation of class distribution
Table 2 Dataset description of UCI-HAR

Number of Users 30
Age range 19–48
Activities performed Walking, walking upstairs, walking downstairs, sitting,
standing, laying
Device Smartphone
Position Waist
Sensors Accelerometer, Gyroscope
Sampling rate 50 Hz
Train test split 70:30
No. of features 561
5.2 Machine Learning Models Applied on UCI-HAR
Three standard Machine Learning classifiers have been chosen such as SVM, KNN,
and Logistic Regression (LR), and Python is used as a programming language along
with Scikit learn toolkits to analyze the performance of the aforementioned
Comparison of ML Models
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
n
m
kn
io
sv
ss
re
eg
R
ic
st
gi
lo
Fig. 6 Comparison of accuracy of different machine learning models
classifiers on this featured dataset. We have used Google Colab for conducting the
experiments. The initial value of k is taken to be 5 and a linear kernel is chosen for
SVM to begin with. A comparison of all three classifiers has been shown graphi-
cally in Fig. 6. It is observed that SVM shows a better classification accuracy as it
works well with high dimensional data and captures nonlinearity better than its
contemporaries.
To take the work a step further, hyper-parameter tuning of the best model (SVM
here) is also conducted as shown in Fig. 7. The main hyper-parameter of SVM is the
kernel that maps the observations into some appropriate feature space. There are
multiple standard kernels such as linear, radial basis, and polynomial. It is observed
that all three kernels provide an accuracy of greater than 98% with hyper-parameters
tuned with three different kernels in SVM.
5.3 Deep Learning Models Applied on UCI-HAR
As discussed, DL models such as Recurrent Neural Network (RNN), LSTM, and

CNN can also be applied in UCI-HAR. The confusion matrix of each has been
shown in Figs. 8, 9, and 10, respectively. As the dataset possesses 6 classes to be
classified by the ML and DL algorithms, the confusion matrix is a 6 × 6 matrix. As
mentioned in the Sect. 3.2, the accuracy in the confusion matrix is obtained diago-
nally (denoted by dark blue in the middle), where the predicted label matches with
the actual label in the dataset. A comparison of all three classifiers has been shown
112 A. Saha et al.
Comparison of ML Models
1.0 0.984944 0.98883 0.990772
1.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
r)
)
f)
ly
ea
rb
po
lin
l:
ne
l:
ne
l:
ne
er
er
(k
er
(k
(K
m
sv
m
sv
sv
Fig. 7 Comparison of accuracy of SVM model with different kernels
Confusion Matrix
WALKING 0.99 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
0.8
WALKING_UPSTAIRS 0.01 0.94 0.05 0.01 0.00 0.00
0.01 0.07 0.89 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.6

WALKING_DOWNSTAIRS
True Label
SITTING 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.99 0.00 0.00

0.4
STANDING 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.98 0.00

0.2
LAYING 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.99
0.0
WALKING
WALKING_UPSTAIRS
WALKING_DOWNSTAIRS
SITTING
STANDING
LAYING
Predicted Label
Fig. 8 Confusion matrix of RNN

Confusion Matrix
WALKING 0.99 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
0.8
0.00 0.07 0.91 0.01 0.00 0.01 0.6

WALKING_DOWNSTAIRS
True Label
SITTING 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.99 0.00 0.00

0.4
STANDING 0.00 0.02 0.00 0.02 0.95 0.00

0.2
LAYING 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.02 0.01 0.96
0.0
WALKING
WALKING_UPSTAIRS
WALKING_DOWNSTAIRS
SITTING
STANDING
LAYING
Predicted Label
Fig. 9 Confusion matrix of LSTM
graphically in Fig. 11. It was observed that RNN performed the best with an accu-
racy of 96%, whereas CNN exhibited an accuracy lesser in comparison with the
other two, as the dataset is already preprocessed. CNN can extract high dimensional
features from the raw dataset and fails to show better results with preprocessed data,
which is evident from the graphs shown.
So, from the above experiments, we can conclude that given a benchmark dataset
like UCIHAR that consists of several basic daily life activities of human beings can
be used to implement several standard ML as well as DL classifiers. The main sig-
nificance of these implemented case studies is to fetch predictions made by the
classifiers and analyze them for basic understanding as well as modify the same for
further research. We can also compare the models and comprehend the accuracies
obtained in each case and conclude the best classifier in the given setup. Further, we
can also alter the hyperparameters of the classifiers like SVM such as the kernels,
and observe the variations in performance with each of them.
114 A. Saha et al.
Confusion Matrix
WALKING 0.74 0.06 0.06 0.07 0.05 0.02

0.8
0.6
WALKING_DOWNSTAIRS 0.00 0.07 0.82 0.08 0.01 0.01

True Label
0.00 0.03 0.01 0.91 0.02 0.03 0.4

SITTING
STANDING 0.02 0.05 0.03 0.09 0.74 0.06

0.2
LAYING 0.00 0.08 0.06 0.09 0.04 0.72
0.0
WALKING
WALKING_UPSTAIRS
WALKING_DOWNSTAIRS
SITTING
STANDING
LAYING
Predicted Label
Fig. 10 Confusion matrix of CNN
Comparison of DL Models
1.0 0.962099 0.955782
0.8 0.789116
0.6
Accuracy
0.4
0.2
0.0
TM
N
N
N
N
LS
R
Model
Fig. 11 Comparison of accuracy of different deep learning models

6 Conclusion
This chapter presents a thorough study of IoT-based HAR for smart living. To begin
with, the background of HAR is discussed and analyzed in detail to provide a basic
idea of the concerned topic. Next, the impact of IoT on HAR is pointed out by the
evolution of research in this domain. Subsequently, the impact of IoT on HAR is
investigated which reflects the interrelation between these two trades. Besides, the
discussion on the challenges can motivate the researcher to explore this domain. An
extensive survey of the state-of-the-art works is presented that enables a better
understanding of the problem domain and existing solutions. This also opens vari-
ous avenues of future directions for interested researchers to demonstrate their
expertise. Finally, a case study gives a meaningful insight into the implementation
of the application of HAR using a benchmark dataset and standard ML as well as
DL classifiers with graphical visualization.
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Application of Data Mining to Support
Facilities Management in Smart Buildings
Matthew Willetts and Anthony S. Atkins
1 Introduction
Climate change has had an observable effects on the environment worldwide includ-
ing the loss of sea ice, accelerated sea level rise, and longer more intense heat waves,
with the temperature expected to rise further between 2.5 and 10 degrees Fahrenheit
over the next century [1]. Buildings are responsible for around 36% of global energy
consumption and 39% of greenhouse gas emissions [2]. It is expected that the larg-
est impact of climate change is that 18% off the worldwide GDP could be wiped off
by 2050 if the global temperature rises by 3.2 °C [3]. Over 2000 businesses of all
sizes globally have signed up to the United Nation’s Race to Zero campaign to
achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050, a third of which are British companies,
including 30 of the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 companies [4]. Evergreen Action
[5] suggests that the impact of climate change pose significant risks to the stability
of the financial systems and the economy, stating that a recent study found that
unchecked climate change will reduce global economic output by 11% to 14% by
2050, approximately $23 trillion a year. The World Economic Forum’s [6] Global
Risk Report identified Climate action failure was identified as the most impactful
and second-most likely long-term risk facing the world as the world continued to
struggle to mitigate the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, facilities
management has a large role in helping to achieve net zero carbon emissions.
Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic has introduced new challenges for facili-
ties management. Siemens report that their research has found that 54% of employ-
ees will opt not to return to the offices in future. Similarly, Harvard Business Review
suggests that while more than 90% of employers are planning to adopt a hybrid
M. Willetts (*) · A. S. Atkins

Staffordshire University, Stoke on Trent, UK
e-mail: matthew.willetts@research.staffs.ac.uk; a.s.atkins@staffs.ac.uk
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26685-0_6
122 M. Willetts and A. S. Atkins
working model for their knowledge workers in 2022, they expect that many high-
profile companies will demand that their employees return full time to the office [7].
This suggests that Smart Buildings will perform a key role in facilities management
as they will need to be able to adapt to the changes in capacity, with differing num-
bers of staff occupying the building throughout the week, providing opportunities to
reduce operating costs and power consumption. An additional challenge will be
keeping the buildings safe, offering for social distancing measures where necessary
to minimize the transmission of viruses. Businesses are adopting new ways of work-
ing, for example, considering hoteling seating models whereby staff can dynami-
cally schedule the use of office workspaces such as desks and cubicles, thereby
limiting the number of the of employees in the office [8]. COVID-19 has increased
the demand for Smart Buildings solutions as businesses are exploring options for
enabling smarter workflow, more efficiently managed facilities, safer and healthier
workplaces [9]. McKinsey [10] reported that although more than 20% of the work-
force could work remotely three to five days per week from home, more than half of
the workforce has little or no opportunity for remote work. Therefore, facilities
management will play a vital role in the maintaining buildings, supported by Internet
of Things (IoT) technology. However, Marjani et al. [11] suggest that depending on
the requirements of IoT applications, different types of analytics may be required.
For example, real-time analytics which are typically performed on sensor data
because situations can change frequently; therefore, rapid data analytics are
required, whereas offline data analytics can be utilized when a quick response is not
required.
Emergen Research [9] reported that the global Smart Buildings market was USD
66.29 Billion in 2020 and is expected to reach USD 141.71 Billion in 2028. The
large volumes of Big Data generated by Smart Buildings provide an opportunity to
utilize machine learning techniques such as association rule mining for the purposes
of identifying patterns in the data to improve energy efficiency, reduce operating
costs and reduce climate change.
The chapter commences with a literature review of Smart Buildings, facilities
management, Big Data Analytics and Data Mining applications in facilities man-
agement. A case study is then presented using a simulated dataset to demonstrate
how data mining can be adopted by facilities management to monitor occupancy
levels in terms of usage and optimize energy efficiency. This is then followed by
Discussion and Conclusions sections.
2 Methods
2.1 Smart Buildings
The term Smart Building originates from Intelligent Building, which was initially
used by the United Technology Building Systems Corporation of the United States
in 1981, with the City Place Building in Hartford Connecticut, USA, becoming the
Application of Data Mining to Support Facilities Management in Smart Buildings 123
first Intelligent Building [12]. There appears to be no agreed definition of Smart

Buildings. The term Smart Building has now superseded Intelligent building.
Qolomany et al. [13] state that Smart Buildings are: “the integration of a wide range
of systems and services into a unified environment that involve energy management
systems, temperature monitoring systems, access security systems, fire and life
safety, lighting control and reduction, telecommunications services, office automa-
tion, computer systems, area locating systems, LANs, management information sys-
tems, cabling and records, maintenance systems, and expert systems.” There are
different types of Smart Buildings, including Smart homes, Smart hospitals, Smart
libraries and Smart shopping centers [13, 14]. The number of Smart Building con-
nections continues to grow on a yearly basis, Vailshery [15] reported that there were
5.08 million IoT connections from Smart Buildings in the EU in 2016, with 154.06
million connections expected in 2025, as shown in Fig. 1 [15].
Ciholas et al. [16] suggest the drivers for the adoption of Smart Buildings is to
increase energy efficiency and therefore costs, providing an example of Building
Energy Management Systems (BEMS) which utilize inputs from subsystems
including occupancy detection, weather data, indoor temperature, humidity and
lighting sensors to optimize heating, ventilation and air conditioning. Smart
Buildings can be characterized as having the following five basic features [17, 18]:
1. Automation: accommodate automatic devices or perform automated functions.
2. Multifunctionality: the ability to undertake multiple functions within the
building.
3. Adaptability: the ability to learn, predict and satisfy the needs of the users within
the building.
4. Interactivity: to facilitate the interaction between users.
5. Efficiency: to perform functions while provide energy efficiency, save time and
reduce costs.
180
Number of active connections in millions
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
2016 2019 2022 2025
Year
Fig. 1 Number of Internet of Things (IoT) Smart Buildings active connections in the European
Union (EU) in 2016, 2019, 2022, and 2025 using data from Vailshery [15]
Smart Buildings can be divided into three layers [16]:

• The field layer consists of the various sensors located in the building which uti-
lize the field layer specific protocols and can be either wired or wireless. There
are generally two types of sensors at this level: sensors which communicate
utilizing simple electric signals to the controller which translates the signal into
information which is readable to humans; and sensors which can communicate
to the management layer utilizing Internet Protocol (IP) for example building
access controls with access card readers which communicate directly with the
management layer.
• The automation layer consists of different controllers which are frequently des-
ignated as either Programmable Logic Controllers or Direct Digital Controls to
receive data from the sensors within the Smart Building. The Controllers aggre-
gate the data from the sensors to share with other controllers or servers on the
network or utilize the data to undertake programmed routines such as switching
a Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) unit on or off depending
upon the temperature reading from a sensor.
• The management layer centralizes all the data from the controllers where a local
supervisor server supervises the Smart Building, records the activity data which
is then utilized to optimize the Smart Building.
One of the most common applications of Smart Buildings are Smart homes.
Alsulami and Atkins [19, p. 12] state that: “the main benefits of Smart homes are
improving comfort, performing medical rehabilitation, supervising mobility and
physiological parameters, providing therapy, delivering convenience, improving
security, and saving energy.” Technologies within a Smart home include: sensors to
detect environmental factors including light, temperature, and motion; monitors;
interfaces; appliances (such as heating and hot water systems), and other devices
that are networked together, enabling the environment to be controlled on an auto-
mated or manual basis, locally or remotely [20].
An example of the application of Smart Building technology is to support ambi-
ent assisted living (AAL). AAL sensors in Smart homes include magnetic switches,
temperature sensors, photosensors, pressure pad sensors, water flow sensors, infra-
red motion sensors, force sensors, smoke sensors, and biosensors [21]. An example
of how Smart homes are assisting AAL is through the reduction of falls by utilizing
machine learning to learn the regular behavior of residents to allow abnormalities
such as a fall to be identified, allowing family or carers to intervene.
There are a wide range of sensors found in Smart Buildings. Humidity sensors
are utilized to monitor the amount of water vapor in the air, which can be equally as
important as measuring the temperature, for example excessive moisture can result
in condensation which could damage equipment. Humidity sensors enable homes
and business to control their heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems [22].
Humidity sensors can be utilized to prevent illness. If the relative humidity is main-
tained between 40% and 60%, the spread of cold and flu reduced by up to 70% [2].
One area in which Smart Buildings can help to reduce operating costs is
HVAC. Traditional HVAC systems can consume over 40% of a commercial
buildings energy, with many of them being oversized, with building operators uti-
lize trial and error to manage the HVAC system, prioritizing comfort rather than
energy savings [23]. At present, many businesses are utilizing hybrid working with
staff spending time away from the office; therefore, optimizing HVAC costs could
result in significant savings. Smart HVAC systems can significantly reduce energy
consumption and improve the comfort for building occupants, with the Smart
Building software utilizing data from HVAC sensors throughout the building, which
can be stored for the purpose of algorithms can be applied to optimize the monitor-
ing and control of the HVAC system. This can be utilized for purposes such as limit-
ing HVAC consumption in unoccupied areas of a building, the detection and
diagnosis of faults and reduce HVAC usage during times of peak energy demand [23].
Temperature sensors are the most significant and commonly utilized sensors in
Smart Buildings [24] for a wide variety of purposes including monitoring duct tem-
peratures, chilled and heated water loops and internal and external air temperatures,
in addition to fan or valve control [25]. Hayat et al. [24] outline four types of tem-
perature sensors, each with differing characteristics such as the measurement range,
accuracy, response time and cost:
1. Thermocouples are thermometric devices which contain two wires of metal
which are joined together at one end and when the temperature changes at the
junction, a voltage is created which is used to read the temperature (the Seebeck
effect).
2. Resistance temperature detectors (RTDs) which measure temperature the based
on the change in resistance of the metal resistor inside them.
3. Thermistors which are similar to RTDs; however, they utilize a ceramic or poly-
mer rather than a metal resistor inside the sensor.
4. Integrated Circuits (IC) that utilize two terminal integrated circuit temperature
transducers which provide an output current proportional to the absolute tem-
perature. IC sensors are the least expensive of the four sensors.
An application of temperature sensors is monitoring for Legionella, which can be
fatal [26]. Legionella bacterium thrives within a specific temperature range and can
exist within any water system, commonly found in public buildings where water can
stand still [27]. While temperature sensors can be utilized, specific sensors such as
the sensor developed by Remote Tech recently launched in the UK market, with a
battery life of 10 years specifically designed for monitoring Legionnaire’s disease.
Dong et al. [28] propose that virtual sensing could be used an alternative to phys-
ical sensing and has been utilized in Smart Building applications, for example
HVAC equipment monitoring and fault diagnostics. However, sensor fusion tech-
niques utilizing data collected such as the room air temperature, relative humidity,
carbon dioxide (CO2) and indoor illuminance level could be utilized to detect room
occupancy [28].
Additionally, apps or web portals can be utilized to record attendance [29, 30].
Apps are also utilized in academic environments to allow students to register from
their mobile devices, which can allow the educational institution to verify their
attendance from the IP address and location of the devices [31]. This can provide
further opportunities to triangulate this data with other sensors such as motion sen-
sors and swipe cards to identify the location of frequently used areas or facilities.
Contact sensors are utilized to detect whether a door, window or another mecha-
nism is open or closed [22]. The sensors are derived of two components, one which
is attached to the door or window and another which is attached to the frame.
Contact sensors can be utilized for a wide range of reasons such as identifying
unlocked doors or to determine if a door has been opened or closed to detect
occupancy.
Faenza [8] suggests that Smart credentials and access control systems can enable
building managers to maintain security as they can manage access to every area of
a building, with visibility of who is going in and out of each room. Additionally,
lockers could be utilized for unattended delivery services, as they can provide a
secure, contactless solution [8].
Gas and air quality sensors are utilized to detect the presence of gases in the air,
allowing toxic, combustible, or other hazardous gases to be detected. There are
three common types of air quality sensors: oxygen, carbon monoxide (CO) and
CO2 [22]. It is essential for gas and air quality to be monitored, for example, high
concentration of carbon dioxide in a building could result in occupants experiencing
headaches, dizziness, breathing difficulties, sweating, tiredness, and increased heart
rate [32]. Similarly, carbon dioxide sensors can be utilized to reduce the costs of air
conditioning by tracking carbon dioxide for Demand Control Ventilation to recircu-
late the air inside or to introduce fresh air if required [25].
Electrical current monitoring sensors have the ability to monitor the energy con-
sumed at a circuit, zone or machine level, providing facilities management the abil-
ity to identify where energy is being wasted and therefore switch of unused devices
consuming power [22]. Additionally, through monitoring electrical usage, unusual
activity can be detected, for example machinery which is malfunctioning and draw-
ing a higher operating current suggesting that it may have been overloaded, allow-
ing maintenance to be scheduled.
The effectiveness of Smart lighting control systems is dependent upon the appro-
priate control and sensitivity of the environment; therefore, the appropriate type of
sensors needs to be installed in optimal locations [33]. For example, pyroelectric
infrared sensors have been extensively in both indoor and outdoor application
because of their low cost, ease of use, and they are widely available; however, as
they utilize infrared, they are more suitable for detecting moving objects and they
are more susceptible to making false detections but are more suitable to hallways
and entrances [33]. An additional challenge is that the COVID-19 pandemic has
changed how people work and how buildings are utilized, with many staff continue
to work predominantly from home. Hollenkamp [34] suggests that traditional light-
ing systems are designed for static use, whereas Smart lighting control technology
is more appropriate with the new hybrid work model as fully-integrated lighting
control systems will be vital for facilities managers trying to identify energy savings.
King and Perry [23] report that one third of commercial building HVAC energy
use is caused by heat gained and lost through windows, with the California Energy
Commission estimating that 40% of the cooling requirement for a building in the
state is because of solar heat gained through windows. Similarly, 75% of EU build-
ings have been reported to be energy inefficient; therefore, Smart windows may
provide the EU Smart window project CLIMAWIN could provide a solution [35].
Burke [35, p. 1] states that: “in their triple-glazed window frame there is a small gap
(around 5 mm wide) at the bottom level on the outside. This gap allows air to pass
in between the window’s glazing layers and be warmed by sunlight. It then enters
the room through a small valve at the top of the window facing inside the building.”
Similarly, Smart window shading solutions provides an opportunity to optimize
HVAC systems. Automated shading solutions utilize a mixture of sensors, timers,
and daylight-responsive software which integrate with a building management sys-
tem to optimize the balance of natural and electrical savings resulting in increased
comfort and reduced energy costs [36].
The Fire Industry Association [37] estimates that false alarms cost the United
Kingdom over £1 billion per year and that modern properly maintained fire alarm
systems rarely suffer equipment malfunctions. Smart fire detection systems such as
the Sinteso fire safety range are designed to be operate in situations where instant
and accurate fire detection is essential [38]. Sinteso utilizes innovative detections
algorithms which transform signals such as temperature and smoke density, com-
bining optical, thermal and electrochemical CO sensors to monitor smoke, heat and
CO to accurately identify fires [38].
Verizon [39] outline that Disruptive Technologies (DT) sensors (19 × 19 × 2.5 mm)
in size, which is around the same size of a stamp, with a battery life of 15 years, can
be attached to pipes, walls, ceilings and other surfaces, without requiring mainte-
nance. A DT client reduced their energy costs by 31% per month and reduced its
carbon footprint by 30% within 5 months. DT’s sensors transmit data wirelessly,
with connectors relaying data to the Cloud via Ethernet or 4G with the types of sen-
sors available including temperature, touch, proximity, water, humidity, CO2,
motion and other industrial sensors [40].
2.2 Facilities Management
ISO [41, p. 1] defines facilities management as: “organizational function which

integrates people, place and process within the built environment with the purpose
of improving the quality of life of people and the productivity of the core business.”
Facilities management covers a range of services including building/asset mainte-
nance, financial systems, productivity, resource management, health and safety
compliance, space management, sustainability and domestic services [42]. Daissaoui
et al. [43, p. 164] state that: “Traditional FM [facilities management] has problems
with lower data quality, longer notification times and delays in relevant operation
and maintenance.”
Some of the benefits of Smart Buildings for facilities management include: the
possibility to create an activity-based and need-based workplace; improving the
health and comfort of the occupants; the ability to improve the quality of the
facilities services; the ability to optimize space within the building; reduced running
costs such as the water and energy; and more efficient planning and resource utiliza-
tion [44].
Konanahalli, Marinelli, and Oyedele [42] indicate that although “digital effi-
ciency” is emerging as a critical differentiator which enables facilities management
to reduce costs, create value for customers, increase profit margins, enable efficient
business operations and find new streams of revenue, only a small number of studies
have reported the adoption of Big Data Analytics in facilities management.
In the last 6 months of 2021, the recovery for European Office demand increased
despite the Omicron variant which appeared to be a significant barrier [45].
Similarly, it is expected that staff hiring is expected to increase and therefore poten-
tially the demand for floorspace, with the results from a Deloitte European Chief
Financial Officers (CFOs) survey from Autumn 2021 indicating that 42% of CFOs
expect to increase hiring over the next 12 months [45]. This may provide challenges
for facilities management as in addition to accommodating flexible working, they
may need to consider that the overall workforce may increase. The Royal Institution
of Chartered Surveyors [46] reported that: “in Q3 of 2021, demand for commercial
property across the office and industrial sector increased, in the main across Europe.
The Commercial Property Sentiment Index improved in nineteen of the twenty
European nations covered by the monitor. Greece, the Netherlands, the Czech
Republic, Austria, Portugal, Ireland and the UK are showing positive signs, but
Cyprus slipped this quarter, with respondents pointing to the pandemic still ham-
pering local economic growth.” This suggests that the price of rent will increase,
and therefore, facilities managers will need to optimize the space they occupy to
decrease the need for further space. Figure 2 displays the rental prices of prime
office properties in selected European cities in the second quarter of 2021 using data
from Statista [47].
The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors undertook a study and produced a
report into Big Data Analytics adoption in facilities management [48]. The study
found that companies surveyed were in the early stages of Big Data Analytics adop-
tion, despite that Big Data Analytics present major opportunities to generate value
for safety and maintenance operations, with the potential to integrate and visualize
a wide range of building data including energy usage, air quality, temperature varia-
tions, and lighting [48].
2.3 Big Data and Big Data Analytics
Big Data is defined as: “an umbrella term used to describe a wide range of technolo-
gies that capture, store, transform and analyses complex data sets which can be of a
high volume, generated at a high velocity in a variety of formats” [49, p. 3034].
There is no agreed definition of Big Data and a survey of researchers found that
although a number of participants described Big Data with the traditional Vs defini-
tion, they could not agree on the number of Vs [50]. This is consistent with other
1,600
1,405
1,400
1,200
1,000 930
Price in Euros
800 700
635 624 600
564
600
480 477 474 470 460
444 429
384
400 342 333 315 312
306 282 276 276
264
228
200
Helsinki
Dublin
Warsaw
Luxembourg
London
Paris
Oslo
Stockholm
Milan
Frankfurt
Munich
Amsterdam
Madrid
Hamburg
Dusseldorf
Barcelona
Brussels
Prague
Vienna
Athens
Berlin
Bucharest
Rome
Lisbon
Budapest
City
Fig. 2 Rental prices of prime office properties in selected European cities in 2nd quarter 2021
using data from Statista [47]
research, with the number of Vs ranging from 3 to 51 [21], originally starting as

Volume, Velocity and Variety [51]. The volumes of Big Data is typically quantified
in terabytes and petabytes, with one terabytes being considered as the minimum
threshold [21]. Big Data is generated from a wide range of sources, with Internet of
Things (IoT) and social media being two of the main sources of Big Data.
Three categories of Big Data were defined by Saggi and Jain [52]: machine-
generated data originating from sources such as computer networks, sensors, satel-
lites, audio, video and streaming; human-generated data including social media
content and identification data; and business-generated data in the form of transac-
tional, corporate, and government agencies’ data. Using these classifications, Smart
Building data would therefore be classified as machine-generated Big Data.
Konanahalli, Marinelli, and Oyedele [42, p. 3] indicate that data in facilities
management can be both structured and unstructured data: “Structured data are
normally referred in Building Information Models (BIMs) but a typical facility
maintenance project also generates additional volumes of unstructured data, cap-
tured in photos, graphics, videos, and scanned documents.” Smart building appli-
ances and devices generate massive volumes of streaming Big Data, containing
valuable information that needs to be mined for the purposes of improved decision
making and to facilitate actions to be taken [13].
Traditionally, Business Intelligence applications have been utilized to analyze
and present data; however, Big Data Analytics solutions are required to extract
insights from Big Data not achievable through Business Intelligence solutions. Big
Data Analytics is the evolution of Business Intelligence, providing the capability to
analyze enormous datasets larger than 2 TB, generated a rapid pace, stored in a
variety of structured, semistructured, and unstructured formats [21]. Mikalef et al.
[53, p. 1] state that a widely used definition of Big Data Analytics is: “a new genera-
tion of technologies and architectures, designed to economically extract value from
very large volumes of a wide variety of data, by enabling high velocity capture,
discovery and/or analysis.” Sivarajah et al. [54] outline five categories of Big Data
Analytics: Descriptive analytics, Inquisitive analytics, Predictive analytics,
Prescriptive analytics, and Pre-emptive analytics. Types of Big Data Analytics
include text analytics, audio analytics, video analytics, social media analytics, pre-
dictive analytics and data mining [55, 56]. Some of the reported benefits achieved
through the adoption of Big Data Analytics include: increased profitability; reduced
unplanned downtime through predictive maintenance; enhanced productivity and
growth; improved data access and management; and providing better products and
services [49].
Despite the potential benefits of Big Data Analytics, facilities management has
been slower than other industries to adopt the technology, despite the potential ben-
efits which can could be utilized such as optimizing HVAC and reducing operating
costs [57] which may be due to a number of barriers including data quality, techno-
logical barriers, inadequate preparation, governance issues and skillsets required
[42]. Similarly, Big Data studies in the construction sector are also scarce [58]. One
application of Big Data Analytics which could be applied to facilities management
of Smart Buildings is data mining. Data mining has been utilized in other Smart
Building studies to monitor the occupancy of buildings utilizing power usage to
learn high usage locations [43]. Big Data Analytics also includes data mining, a
category of which is Association Rule Mining which has been extended to Big
Data [59].
3 Results
3.1 Data Mining in Facilities Management Case Study
Qolomany et al. [13] suggest that it is difficult to develop predictive models utilizing
traditional approaches as they do not provide accurate insights when analysis large
volumes of data such as the Big Data harvested from Smart Buildings, summarizing
that there are four potential categories for the application of machine learning in
Smart Buildings: detection, recognition, prediction and optimization. The intention
is to focus on the detection of anomalies in the data which would not be detected
utilizing traditional data analysis tools due to the large volumes of Big Data gener-
ated by the Smart Building. Alanne and Sierla [60] suggest that the evolution of
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning has provided the opportunity to
learn, outlining the opportunities for optimizing energy utilization through rein-
forcement learning techniques and AI to automate building control and energy
management. Other applications of machine learning include forecasting the indoor

temperature [61], predicting repair times [62] and utilizing association rule mining
to identify HVAC problems [63]. However, given that there has been a shift to
hybrid working patterns, it appears that there may be a greater opportunity to opti-
mize Smart Buildings by monitoring the activity within a Smart Building to identify
patterns in the occupant’s behavior which can be used for a variety of purposes,
including optimizing energy management based on the number of occupants at
specified times throughout the day.
Data mining the Big Data generated by the IoT devices found within a Smart
Building could provide facilities management with insight to optimize their build-
ings, resulting in reduced operating costs and reduced carbon emissions. The sce-
nario proposed in this example is of an office building of a business operating in the
public sector. The building has 5 floors, each divided into 8 zones which were based
on workflow patterns and process operations, resulting in 40 zones throughout the
building. To produce the examples shown in this scenario, a dataset was been con-
structed based on examples [64, 65]. The dataset was analyzed using Weka [66] for
the purposes of illustrating association rules for the scenario; however, other data
mining applications could be utilized in the real world such as RapidMiner and SPSS.
Association Rule Mining is widely used to identify associations between items
or item sets, which has extended to Big Data [59]. In the scenario on facilities man-
agement, Apriori and Predictive Apriori are two possible types of Association Rule
Mining algorithms which could be used. Apriori is a seminal algorithm for mining
frequent item sets for Boolean Association and utilizes an iterative approach for
finding rules, known as a level-wise search [67]. García et al. [68] state that in the
association rule X ⇒ Y, in a transaction where X occurs, the probability of Y also
occurring is high. X is known as the antecedent and Y is known as the consequent
[68]. Association rules are measured by support and confidence as the criteria to
identify the most important relationships, with support being the number of transac-
tions which contain both X and Y, and confidence being the number of transactions
which contain both X and Y divided by the number of transactions containing
X. Witten et al. [69] discuss four metrics for ranking association rules: Confidence,
Lift, Leverage and Conviction. Oweis et al. [70] state that Lift can be used to iden-
tify interesting patterns in the data. Lift >1 signifies a positive correlation and Lift
<1 indicates that there is a negative correlation. A Lift value near 1 indicates that the
occurrence of X has almost no effect on the occurrence of Y [71]. For a rule to be
considered useful, its Lift value must be greater than 1 and the larger this is, the
stronger the association. Leverage indicates the frequency of X and Y appearing
together when they are independently distributed [72]. When Leverage is equal to
zero, both X and Y are independent; however, the greater the leverage is, the closer
the relationship between X and Y. Li et al. [72] suggest that conviction is used to
measure the independence of variables and similarly to the lift, the greater the value
of confidence, the greater the correlation between the elements and is discussed in
more detail in Willetts, Atkins, and Stanier [73].
Although the Apriori algorithm is one of the most commonly used algorithms for
association rule mining [59], the Predictive Apriori algorithm has been utilized for
Fig. 3 Derived dataset based on a scenario of power consumption
this example, as this is an improved version of the Apriori algorithm, which maxi-
mizes the probability of making an accurate prediction and resolves the issue of
balance between support and confidence [74]. Weka’s default settings for the
Predictive Apriori algorithm were utilized. The dataset was created by writing a
macro to generate values for each field; however, other methods could have been
utilized for example random data generators such as Mockaroo [75]. A screenshot
of the derived dataset is provided in Fig. 3. This application of the derived data was
extended to several scenarios such as facilities usage and power consumption.
The data in this scenario has been captured through the different sensors through-
out the building such as temperature sensors, motion sensors, door access controls,
electricity current monitoring sensors and HVAC sensors. As the tracking of occu-
pancy is the main goal, data will also be captured by swipe card access on the major-
ity of doors in the building. Additionally, check ins via an app are also recorded to
allow visitor and staff activity to be recorded. By triangulating the sensor, mobile
app, and swipe card access data, a more accurate view of the occupancy of the build-
ing is attained, allowing patterns of activity to be identified by the association rules.
Figure 4 shows an example floorplan of a floor from the Smart Building, showing a
variety of the sensors discussed previously.
The staff in the building in this example are utilizing a hybrid working model,
whereby they are spending two to three days in the office. Therefore, there are areas
of the building which are more popular than others throughout the week, while the
Application of Data Mining to Support Facilities Management in Smart Buildings
Fig. 4 An example of a floor layout showing the placement of sensors and the collection of data for the purpose of analysis using data mining software
133
Fig. 5 An example of association rules found showing occupancy of zones throughout the build-
ing and the power consumption
heating and air conditioning are operating at high usage levels. Figure 5 shows a
selection of the association rules found from this scenario which is outputted by
Weka ordered based on accuracy and the number of association rules can be cus-
tomized. The first set of rules outlined in red shows that in Zone 1 on Floor 3 and
Zone 3 on Floor 5, there are 250 instances where less than 10 staff are occupying
these spaces, however the power usage is high. This suggests that the heating or air
conditioning can be adjusted to save power or there may be an issue with the equip-
ment in this area requiring maintenance. The second set of association rules high-
lighted in blue shows instances of specific days where there are less than 10 people
occupying a zone, suggesting that staff could be moved to different zones or floors.
This may provide an opportunity to condense staff into certain areas of the building
so that the unused space can be rented out to other businesses, potentially subletting
the space. In the public sector, some councils are turning unoccupied office and
retail space into areas for start-up companies to occupy, including meeting room
facilities and training on digital skills [76]. The final set of rules highlighted in green
show specific dates and times when there is low occupancy in the building. This
may allow certain areas of the building to be closed or to identify patterns of which
spaces of the building are being used which require facilities management to inves-
tigate why particular spaces are unpopular, for example inadequate printing facili-
ties, a lack of meeting room availability or the areas being uncomfortable such as
being too hot or cold. In this scenario, data from the air quality sensors could assist
which could potentially lead to Smart windows being installed to provide additional
efficiencies. Additionally, Smart lighting could be installed to reduce energy costs
further.
Association rule mining could also be utilized to identify which facilities in the
building are being utilized such as meeting or conference rooms, catering facilities,
breakout spaces, printing and toilets. This is particularly important following the
COVID-19 pandemic as some countries may require social distancing to be fol-
lowed, and therefore, there may be certain areas of the building which are becoming
overcrowded or need more frequent cleaning. The association rules in Fig. 6 show
specific floors and times with the usage of specific door access control, motion and
toilet sensors to identify patterns in their usage. For example, rule 12 shows that the
Fig. 6 An example of selected association rules showing the door access and toilet sensor activity
to identify where toilets are frequently or infrequently used
toilet on Floor 2 is not frequently used at 2 PM. However, rule 39 shows that at the
same time on Floor 5 the toilet is used over 30 times in the hour despite less than 10
people being detected by motion sensor 1. Therefore, irregular activity patterns may
be detected requiring intervention, for example, it may be that toilets are regularly
unclean and therefore facilities management may need to ensure that these areas are
cleaned more thoroughly and broadcast communication bulletins to staff in the
affected zones. Without the Big Data collected by the sensors and the ability to find
association rules, these patterns may not be detected and in this scenario, it may be
that the cleaning staff are not cleaning areas of the building frequently enough to
cater for the number of occupants in the zones. Additional sensor data may provide
further insights. Similarly, if an app is used to allow people to sign in, this may
provide further data to triangulate with the variety of sensors installed throughout
the building. Association rule mining may show areas such as meeting and confer-
ence rooms that are not being utilized on specific days or times, which could be
hired out to other businesses to provide additional income.
Similarly, association rules may be found from a variety of other sensor data. For
example, patterns between the humidity sensors, electrical currents, heating and air-
conditioning. Patterns may be noticed through meeting rooms or catering facilities
being utilized more than others, allowing facilities management to investigate.
Figure 7 summarizes how data from the IoT sensors throughout a Smart Building
and data from mobile attendance apps can be harvested to mine for association rules
to optimize a building.
4 Discussion
The chapter has presented a literature review of Smart Buildings, Facilities

Management and Big Data Analytics. The literature review identified a range of
sensors which can be installed within a building to provide facilities management
with a wide range of sensor data using Internet of Things (IoT) technology. The Big
136
Fig. 7 An example of how sensor and app sign in data can be mined for association rules which can then be utilized by Facilities management to optimize the
building
M. Willetts and A. S. Atkins
Data collected from these sensors can be analyzed using a variety of Big Data
Analytics techniques such as Data mining. The chapter discusses two types of asso-
ciation rule mining the Apriori and Predictive Apriori algorithms. The Predictive
Apriori algorithm has been used and justified in an investigative study using a simu-
lated dataset based on real-world sensor datasets for optimizing workflow patterns.
The output from the Predictive Apriori algorithm has illustrated several examples of
how facilities management can utilize data mining to increase efficiency. The exam-
ples have shown how facilities management can identify anomalies such as exces-
sive power utilization and the usage of facilities by tracking occupancy and making
intelligence decisions in workflow operation regarding facilities management
arrangements. One of the main advantages of data mining is that it can identify pat-
terns in the data which would not be identified through other types of analysis for
example traditional Business Intelligence reporting. In Fig. 5, the association rules
show anomalies where there is low occupancy levels and high energy consumption.
This would be areas that would need to be investigated from the facilities manage-
ment perspective to rectify. However, not all the findings from data mining will be
insightful. Therefore, one of the challenges of data mining is that the user will need
to understand the algorithms and how to transform the dataset into a suitable format,
in addition to domain knowledge of the sector the business operates in. A data sci-
entist may not be able to spot patterns in the data without knowledge of the building
and its occupants. This suggests that training or the recruitment of data scientists
may be required to fully utilize this technology. However, with the cost of energy
rapidly increasing and the uncertainty of when this may stabilize, data mining may
provide facilities management opportunities to make significant cost savings by
reorganizing workflow usage and opportunities to use redundant space in renting
out space to improve income streams.
Smart meters may also be utilized by facilities management to monitor energy
usage. Smart Metering Equipment Technical Specifications (SMETS) is the United
Kingdom’s industry-standard smart meter [77], SMETS is followed by a number
which indicates the generation of the smart meter, for example SMETS1 are first
generation smart meters or SMETS2 which are second generation, both of which
are found in homes across the United Kingdom. For commercial properties, either
Automated Meter Reading (AMR) meters or 3-Phase SMETS2 smart meters are
utilized as they are specifically designed for heavy load energy users [78]. Three-
phase power supplies are more efficient than the single-phase power supplies found
in homes as they can transmit three times as much power while requiring only one
additional wire [79]. The data from the SMETS2 equivalent meter outlining the
energy consumption can be used in business intelligence and facilities management
to carry out corrective energy reduction procedures.
Data mining may also be used to improve the quality of the service provided by
facilities management. In the earlier example of high-power usage, the association
rules may also help to identify equipment which is malfunctioning.
5 Conclusion
This chapter has highlighted the changes in workflow patterns and building space
utilization following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic with companies tran-
sitioning to a hybrid working pattern. Tracking the occupancy levels throughout the
building and quickly adapting to the patterns in usage throughout will be crucial to
optimizing operating costs and therefore benefiting the environment by reducing
emissions. It is anticipated that businesses may not be fully optimizing their build-
ings to reflect the reduced capacity at certain times throughout the week, such as on
Mondays and Fridays. This can provide opportunities for facilities management to
optimize their buildings, for example condense the floorspace required. If the build-
ing is operating at the same levels with reduced numbers of staff, high energy costs
and emissions will be incurred. This will help businesses on their journeys to move
toward reducing their carbon footprint and the impact of climate change. Association
rule mining of the Big Data collected by the IoT sensors throughout the building
will help facilities management to become more agile and respond quickly to the
changes within the building and environment. It may also allow them to identify
commercial opportunities for the unused space throughout the building. This chap-
ter provides some examples of how the association rule mining of IoT Big Data
from Smart Buildings can assist facilities management. However, it is anticipated
that additional sensors may be added from developments in sensor technology and
whether they can be retrofitted to provide further opportunities to discover further
patterns in building usage data to further optimize buildings as part of a Building
Information Modeling (BIM) system. The recent conflict in Eastern Europe has led
to the price of wholesale gas more than doubling and the cost of oil reaching $139
a barrel [80]. Therefore, the utilization of space and being agile to source new
income streams will become even more important to facilities management of
buildings.
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Application of Artificial Intelligence
in Ambient Assisted Living to Support
Elderly People in Smart Homes
Benhur Bakhtiari Bastaki, Mohamed Sedky, Russell C. Campion,

and Anthony Atkins
1 Introduction
Recently, Ambient Intelligence (AmI) paradigm is used for enabling technologies in

different scenarios to empower people’s capabilities by means of digital environ-
ment. The AmI technologies have been widely applied in the field of healthcare
monitoring in Smart homes where an Assisted Living System (ALS) provides
healthcare services to older and disabled residents living in their homes or in sup-
ported housings. The ALS empowered by AmI technologies, also referred to as
Ambient Assisted Living (AAL), is used for continuously monitoring health status
or daily activity of the elderly using several physiological parameters and measure-
ment technologies such as those are used for Heart Rate (HR), Blood Pressure (BP),
respiration rate, body temperature, pulse oxygenation and blood glucose.
One of the motivations for AAL technologies, in particular health monitoring
and assistance, is the significant worldwide increase of the aging population. In fact,
according to a report from the Office for National Statics1 in 1948, 11% of the popu-
lation of Great Britain was aged 65 and older. By 2016, this had risen to 18%. That
is an increase from around five million to just over 11.5 million people. Although
according to the United Nation,2 population of older people across the globe is
expected to be doubled by 2025 to around 1.2 billion. Demographic changes in the
1
http://www.un.org/en/index.html
2
https://www.ons.gov.uk/
B. B. Bastaki (*) · M. Sedky · R. C. Campion · A. Atkins

Staffordshire University, Stoke on Trent, UK
e-mail: b.b.bastaki@staffs.ac.uk; M.H.Sedky@staffs.ac.uk; R.J.Campion@staffs.ac.uk;
A.S.Atkins@staffs.ac.uk
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26685-0_7
146 B. B. Bastaki et al.
United Kingdom, such as an ageing and expanding population, have led to many
challenges related to society and healthcare system, and some of these challenges
are as follows [1, 2]:
• A steady increase in health conditions and diseases such as hypertension, hypo-
tension, heart stroke and Parkinson’s diseases.
• An increase in cost of healthcare services.
• Staff shortages in the healthcare sector, which result in more family members
taking the role of informal caregivers. Currently, there is a demand for health
professionals trained to work with elderly people.
• A high demand to support elderly people with age-related health conditions and
who are unable to live independently. Hence, it is important to provide a safe,
cost effective and high-quality care to elderly population.
These needs are growing and extracting considerable demand on healthcare, and
Plum’s report [3, 4] has suggested that the applications of AAL systems can reduce
the cost of equipping a home for telecare and telehealth substantially, perhaps from
£2000 to £200 by 2030. The Department of Health has conducted the Whole System
Demonstrator (WSD) programme3 in 2011 to demonstrate potential benefits of
applying AAL technologies for delivering the health and care services. The result
from the WSD programme indicates 15% reduction in Accident and Emergency
(A&E) visits, 14% reduction in bed days, 20% reduction in emergency admissions,
5.8% reduction in tariff costs, 14% reduction in elective admissions and more
extraordinarily a 45% reduction in mortality rates [5, 6].
Smart homes can help to provide support to the elderly citizens in terms of inde-
pendent living and nurture community support in a cost-effective way. One of the
major challenges of the ageing population is to provide effective and efficient deliv-
ery of housing support and healthcare services [1]. Most elderly people would pre-
fer to continue to live independently; however, family members need reassurance
that relatives and healthcare professionals are alerted immediately in the event of
some unusual situations occurring in their daily activity/heath, such as a falling,
heart attack and/or stroke. The alternative, such as care in residential nursing homes
or hospitals, is costly and the cost increases further if specialised care is required.
Smart homes using AAL technologies can provide a cost-effective solution to the
rising healthcare costs of the increasingly elderly population. The wide range of
smart sensors and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies within a Smart home can be
used to alert and be used to provide proactive heath condition information on elderly
individuals for health deterioration detection. AI and Machine Learning (ML) tech-
niques such as anomaly detection and prediction are also utilised in AAL to analyse
patterns of sensed data and to learn from them to adapt the behaviour of AAL for
future incidents. According to Lavrač [7], ML, as well as data visualisation, and
temporal data abstraction, are techniques of intelligent data mining [8]. Data mining
3
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/whole-system-demonstrator-programme-headline-
findings-december-2011
Application of Artificial Intelligence in Ambient Assisted Living to Support Elderly… 147
techniques in AAL are used for extracting regularities hidden in the health data and
formulating knowledge in the form of patterns or rules.
Sections 2 and 3 presents a literature review of Ambient Assisted Living (AAL)
and application to Smart homes to assist elderly people to provide wellbeing and
health community support for independent living. Section 4 AI and Machine
Learning (ML) techniques utilised in AAL to analyse patterns of sensed data and to
learn from them to adapt the behaviour of AAL to support elderly people. This is
then followed by Discussion in Section 5 and Conclusions in Section 6.
2 Ambient Assisted Living Applications
AAL applications are designed and developed based on the type of healthcare ser-
vices that are delivered to the elderly [3, 9]. These services are:
• Telehealth services: delivering medical care, treatment, or monitoring services,
e.g., monitoring vital signs to manage a long-term condition such as Chronic
Pulmonary Obstructive Disease (COPD), respiratory conditions, diabetes and
heart conditions.
• Telecare services: delivering social care or monitoring services, e.g., a voice
memo system to remind an elderly patient with short term memory condition to
take keys and turn off gas/electric before leaving the home.
• Wellness services: delivering services for healthier lifestyles by keeping patients
both physically and emotionally well. For example, an adaptive lighting can con-
tribute to healthy sleep and reduce stress [10].
• Digital participation services: enabling social, educational or entertainment
activities. For example, helping people to manage mental health conditions
accessing digital tools that can give them support when the most need it.
• Teleworking services: enabling elderly and disabled people to work remotely
from home.
The applications of AAL systems that provide such healthcare services can be
divided into three main categories:
1. Human Activity Recognition (HAR): continuously monitoring the body
motion of elderly people using wireless sensors such as accelerometers and
gyroscopes [11]. For instance, the accelerometers are used to monitor the elderly
person if he/she is lying down, walking, standing. The application of AAL for
HAR can be utilised in elderly’s homes to provide them with telecare and well-
ness services.
2. Indoor Positioning: continuously monitoring the location of elderly people or
objects in an indoor environment. The application of AAL for Indoor positioning
can be used for fall and movement detection, location tracking to improve the
quality of wellness and telecare services.
3. Health Monitoring and Assistance: Continuously monitoring the health status

of the elderly people using vital signs and measurement technologies such as
those used for HR, BP, respiration rate, body temperature, pulse oxygenation and
blood glucose.
Some specific tasks that the applications of an AAL system can achieve are Activities
of daily living monitoring, fall and movement detection, location tracking, medica-
tion intake monitoring and medical status monitoring.
The difference between a traditional Assisted Living System (ALS) and an AAL
is in the type of technologies that are used to add transparency and intelligence to
the traditional ALS. For an ALS to exhibit Ambient Intelligence, it is required to be
transparent to its surrounding environment, to use and incorporate multiple sensors
to collect physiological data from elderly people, to take an action according to the
patients’ current context and to reason and adapt to new changes.
The transparency of an AAL is achieved by the most profound technologies
defined as ubiquitous and pervasive computing. Wireless technologies, in particular
wearable technologies, enable AAL systems to collect the physiological data from
the elderly. These technologies enable AAL to be context-rich, to gain knowledge of
the surrounding environment and reception of a situation. Normally, the sensed and
extracted data (incl. physiological, and human activity/behaviour) from the elderly
people are not sufficient for the AAL to automatically reason and adapt to the new
changes unless the AmI, as a key enabling technology, is incorporated in the design
of such systems.
3 Ambient Intelligence
Ambient Intelligence, or in short AmI, is a new era in Information Technology (IT)

in which the “enabling technologies” are used in our surroundings to support us in
our daily lives. The European Commission’s Information Society Technologies
Advisory Group (ISTAG) introduced the concept of ambient intelligence [12].
Computers are already influencing our daily lives, and there are even more projects
and researches that are directed to the way that the technologies can be used to help
society. In fact, recent advancements in the technologies have offered a new set of
services and scenarios where people can be surrounded by systems that are intelli-
gent enough to assist them proactively, while not intruding upon people’s lives.
Whether it is an indoor health monitoring and assistance solution to monitor the
medical condition of an older person, or it is a transport station providing services
to the passengers, or an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in hospitals delivering care for
patients. The AmI services are harmonised by “intelligent systems” that integrate
the resources available to provide an “intelligence environment.” This convergence
of topics has led to the area of “ambient intelligence.” In other words, as discussed
by Kofod-petersen [13], the AmI environment is based on a relationship between
three computing paradigms: Ubiquitous, Pervasive and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
These paradigms can be referred to as a set of technologies and principles that

should be considered for the success of AmI systems. They bring new features to the
AmI system compared to the traditional ones such as being: transparent, sensitive,
responsive, adaptive and intelligent [10].
3.1 Ubiquitous and Pervasive Computing
The terms “Ubiquitous computing” and “Pervasive computing” are often used inter-
changeably. In 1991, Mark Weiser [14], a scientific American, was the first to envis-
age the ubiquitous computing paradigm in his article “The Computer for the 21st
Century,” in which he described Ubiquitous computing as “The most profound tech-
nologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday
life until they are indistinguishable from it” [14]. He had this vision that in the
future, the world will be occupied by several artefacts empowered with computing
capabilities, which would come to be part of our lives and assist us in our daily
activities. The fact that computers will start to fade into the background, does not
mean they will visually disappear, but they will operate in such a way that we would
stop thinking about the fact that we are using a computer and we would begin to
work through them, and they would become an extension of ourselves.
An analogy to this would be cars, when they first came out it was a big deal to
have a car and then in the next few generations cars were almost like family pets and
now, they are just around us and we do not give much attention to them at all. Even
though the terms ubiquitous computing and pervasive computing often are used
interchangeably, the term ubiquitous computing is often preferred when dealing
with the original idea of augmenting an ordinary artefact to allow access to the digi-
tal world. Whereas, the term pervasive computing is used when investigating sys-
tems, architectures, and integration of systems into human surroundings [15]. The
pervasive term is often used when there are multiple sensor devices, collecting dif-
ferent information from the surroundings. In AAL scenarios, several physiological
parameters are collected by using multiple sensors which should be combined to
make applications of AAL pervasive and responsive to the environment’s
changes [16].
Nowadays, ubiquitous and pervasive technologies are also covered in the distrib-
uted computing and mobile computing research fields, dealing with transparency
and invisibility features to the AmI. For instance, wireless the wearable sensor tech-
nology is available to monitor the activity of individuals.
3.1.1 Wireless Sensor Technologies
At the present time, wireless sensor devices are available in different forms such as
portable sensors, wearable sensors, and embedded sensors which are used for moni-
toring activity/behaviour and health status of a person in AAL scenarios and smart
homes. There are increasing appearances of implantable medical sensors to fre-

quently measure the health status and vital signs data in AAL health monitoring
scenarios [17]. Hence, wireless sensor technologies play an important role for the
AmI concept to become a reality where a network of tiny sensor devices in the AmI
environment is observing the surroundings and transmits the perceived data back to
a remote base station using technologies such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and ZigBee.
For instance, smartphones or smartwatches are ubiquitously carried by people
everywhere and every-day, or smart clothing that incorporates technologies capa-
bilities into existing wear. For example, Heddoko™ (Montreal, Canada) has devel-
oped smart shirts that collect human movement data that can be viewed in real time
or saved for later playback via a mobile application, or smart shirts by Hexoskin,
Cityzen Sciences, Ralph Lauren Polo and Athos that measure vital signs such as
heart and respiratory rates for monitoring the status of several human physiological
properties [18].
The research community in this field, established a list of objectives for the
development of wireless platforms to be small, inexpensive, and to have a low
power consumption that can automatically form ad-hoc wireless communication
networks when they are deployed in an indoor or outdoor environment [19].
The basic hardware design principle for these platforms is to integrate sensors,
computations and communication in a single unit. The first generation of these plat-
forms was commercialised by CrossBow Technologies in 1999, it is known as the
Berkley Rene. The Rene was based on AT90LS8535 processor with 8 KB of pro-
gram memory and 0.5 KB of RAM that used a radio with a data rate of 10 Kbps.
Some other popular wireless platforms are Mica, MicaZ, Telos, TelosB and
SHIMMER 3 [20]. Two examples of works on wireless sensor technologies are
“Smart-Its” project and “Phidgets.” The “Smart-Its” project funded by the European
Union’s Disappearing Computer Initiatives. One of the objectives in the Smart-Its
project was to design wireless technology that digitally tag and interconnect to spe-
cific everyday objects (such as teacups, keys and toys). “Phidgets” is an innovative
sensor and actuation platform developed at the University of Calgary [17, 21].
In a work by Cao et al. [22], sensor devices are categorised into three types based
on approaches used for data collection and transmission, including:
• Time-based: sensors that collect and transmit data packets periodically with a
pre-defined timer.
• Event-driven: sensors collect and transmit data packet when a specific event is
triggered.
• Requirement-based: sensor devices are programmed to be triggered and send
data packet on the basis of a user requirement.
The wireless sensor devices normally consist of four main units (see Fig. 1).
• Sensing Unit: it is comprised of one or multiple sensors and transducers to col-
lect data from the surrounding environment or physiological data from elderly
people. Analogue to Digital Conversion (ADC) is used within the unit to digital-
ise the analogue signal that is received from the transducer (electrode, micro-
Sensing Unit Processing Unit Communication Unit
Sensor 1
Microcontroller Transmitter
ADC
Storage
Receiver
Sensor N ... Internal External
Power Supply
Fig. 1 Sensor technology architecture
phone, and camera), this is an essential part of the device as digital data will be
used in the processing unit for further processing.
• Processing Unit: two main components in this unit are a microcontroller that
process and analyse the sensed data from a sensing unit, and a storage to store
the processed data.
• Communication Unit: the task of this unit is to receive and transmit data to a
mobile phone and a PC application.
• Power Supply Unit: the task of this unit is to power up other units. Wireless
sensor devices can be grouped into active and passive sensors. The active sensor
devices are known for their long range signal transmission which results in hav-
ing a higher rate of power consumption in comparison to a passive sensor device
[23]. The wireless sensor devices can be powered by a battery or they can be
battery-less. Silva et al. [24] in his work has used an RF energy harvesting to
supply power to microcontroller and wireless glucose sensor, this technique is
used to increase the lifetime cycle of the sensor in AAL scenario without a need
to replace the battery for years.
Wireless sensor devices can be integrated into Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN)
[25], to transfer perceived data to a remote base station using technologies such as
Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and ZigBee. A simple WSN in AAL scenarios can be composed of
five distinct subsystems which work together to make a broad vision of an AmI
healthcare service possible [26]. The five subsystems are:
• Body Area Network (BAN): is a network of wearable biosensors worn by
elderly people to collect physiological data such as Blood Pressure (BP), Heart
Rate (HR), and electrocardiogram of elderly person.
• Personal Area Network (PAN): is a network of environmental sensors such as
RFID readers, motion sensors, pressure sensors and video cameras in order to
track movements of elderly person and monitor their behaviour.
• Gateway to the Wide Area Networks (WAN): the main role of this subsystem
is to connect BAN and PAN subsystems to the Wide Area Networks where col-
lected data can be transmitted to a base station for further processing.
• Wide Area Networks (WAN): plays an inevitable role in ubiquitous AAL appli-
cations by enabling healthcare providers to remotely monitor health status and
activity of the elderly people and provide them with healthcare services when
is needed.
• End-User healthcare monitoring application: is at the heart of the AAL sys-
tem, and it generally includes components such as Machine Learning (ML) algo-
rithms to detect unexpected situations [26], decision software to handle warning
messages [27], database management systems to store contextual information,
and Graphic User Interfaces (GUI) for real-time monitoring of the elderly’s
health status by providing essential information as well as functionalities to pro-
fessional caregivers.
So now that wearable and embedded wireless technologies are available for
ubiquitous and pervasive AmI, the perceived data somehow should represent the
environment in which they are situated. From a Human Computer Interaction (HCI)
perspective, a user interacts with the system through the User Interface (UI). This
type of interaction that requires a dialog between the user and a system is formalised
as explicit input or explicit interaction which are common types of interaction in
traditional systems. The explicit interactions challenge the idea of invisible comput-
ing, pervasive computing, and AmI paradigm. Hence, a new paradigm is proposed
by Albrecht Schmidt [28] as implicit Human Computer Interaction (iHCI). In the
iHCI paradigm, a new form of input to the system is identified as implicit input or
implicit interaction. An implicit input is defined by Albrecht Schmidt as actions and
behaviour of humans, which are done to achieve a goal and are not primarily
regarded as interaction with a computer, but captured, recognised and interpreted by
an AAL as input.
In AAL health monitoring, explicit interaction is about tasks such as updating
medical history of an older person or adding new medical conditions to the system,
while implicit interaction consists of vital signs data of an elderly person which are
monitored using wearable sensor devices. The ability to appreciate the environment,
requires the use of explicit and implicit inputs effectively, within pervasive comput-
ing, referred to as being context-aware [13]. For the AAL, health monitoring is
essential to be context-aware as online and ad-hoc natures of these systems. The
contextual information in AAL health monitoring is dynamic and changes more
often compared to traditional ALS system. Therefore, the use of appropriate tech-
niques is helpful for modelling the outside world which leads to reasoning and
decision-making capabilities.
3.1.2 Context-Awareness
Context-awareness computing is about AAL systems in health monitoring auto-

matically perceiving contextual information from a person and taking an action
according to the person’s current context and needs [29]. Both context and aware
terms have certain meanings. The context represents any information that can be
used to characterise the situation of an entity. An entity includes person, a place or
an objective [29], whereas aware is defined in [13], as having knowledge or recep-
tion of a situation or fact. In health monitoring, an entity may be an older or disabled
person who uses sensor devices for monitoring his/her vital signs.
In AAL generally, there are no standards or guidelines available for building a
context-aware system as these systems are usually developed for a specific scenario
and purpose, and thus, are focused on finding solutions to a specific problem [15].
Therefore, how an AAL’s knowledge or understanding of a situation is defined is
largely subjective [13]. For example, to monitor the health status of an elderly per-
son and to ensure that he/she is in good health, the information that should be needed
is about the elderly person’s vital signs which may represent HR and BP. In health-
care, readings from these vital signs are used by health professionals to diagnose
medical conditions such as hypertension, hypotension or to detect any abnormal
readings that can lead to a critical event such as cardiac arrest. In AAL, the inputs
from sensor devices are referred to as raw data or low-level context which are
unprocessed [29]. The low-level context does not hold enough information about an
entity; hence, it needs to be processed before being used by machine learning algo-
rithms for reasoning and decision making. The processed data is commonly referred
to as context information. Different Data Mining (DM) techniques are used for
modelling the contextual information to make a better understanding of an entity’s
vital signs patterns.
In addition to this, some explicit inputs from health professionals can be used
through the user interface. The explicit information in AAL health monitoring can
be the medical history of an older person including his age, gender, or history of any
stroke or heart condition. In health monitoring, in addition to the explicit informa-
tion, the correlative changes in vital signs data of elderly persons should also be
monitored and used with the elderly person’s current medical history for diagnosis
and prognosis of a symptom.
For instance, Systolic BP (SBP) over 140 mmHg is a normal rate for a person
with a hypertension condition where the same SBP rate is an indicator of an abnor-
mality in the vital sign of a healthy person. The vital signs data may also have a
different contextual meaning depending on the time of the day that it occurred. For
example, the blood pressure normally is higher when a person wakes up in the
morning and during the night is descending due to the body’s normal circadian
rhythm. These changes in temporal patterns of the vital signs in AAL health moni-
toring are primary for decision making; hence, they are modelled and learned to
ensure the effectiveness of the system.
A good example of a context-aware AAL system and residential monitoring net-
work is the AlarmNet [30] that is developed by the University of Rochester. Various
wearable and embedded sensor devices in the Alarm-Net are ubiquitously net-
worked to collect 24 hours of data every day to help the health professionals in
monitoring the health condition of residents. One requirement of the Alarm-Net is
that power management of every sensor should be adaptively controlled according
to its characteristics and context such as the location of sensors. To overcome this
requirement, the AlarmNet has combined the Context-Aware Power Management
(CAMP) subsystem that is aware of the activity of residents while it ensures the
system dynamically provides a reliable sensing service with efficient energy con-
sumption. The CAMP subsystem has five functional components, including sensor
drivers, a context-aware power manager, a Circadian Activity Rhythm (CAR) analy-
sis program, a context manager, and an UI.
Administrators in Alarm-Net directly control each sensor through the UI (explicit
interaction), and they can turn the sensors on/off. Moreover, administrators can use
the system to specify context policies for the power management such as “to turn off
the sensors in the bedrooms and reducing the temperature sensing rate to an hourly
mode in all rooms if the resident is in the living room watching television.”
On the other hand, the context manager collects and maintains the current con-
text of residents and the environment from sensor data (implicit interaction). For
example, sensors such as Wlan, GSM, compass or air pressure are used in different
places to track the location of the resident [31]. The perceived data from sensors will
be used with context policies for Alarm-Net to take an action.
Alarm-Net also incorporates the CAR, an artificial intelligence software that
learns the patterns of the daily life of the individuals to control the system and net-
work protocols for power management and privacy. The CAR computes reasoning
and decision making. It enables advanced power management by anticipating the
sensors that should be kept active while temporarily disabling other sensors to con-
serve power according to the habits of the individual.
For the Alarm-Net to effectively manage the power consumption of each sensor,
it needs to be knowledgeable about its surrounding environment. Being knowledge-
able is central to being aware, reasoning capabilities or intelligence is applied using
the CAR algorithm. Hence, the context-aware paradigm in AAL scenarios plays an
important role to bridge the sensing technologies to the reasoning and the decision-
making tasks using artificial intelligence technologies.
3.2 Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the oldest fields of computer science that strives
to understand the essence of intelligence to compose a new intelligent machine that
responds in a manner similar to human intelligence. In recent years, AI techniques
and methods have been a key factor in the success of AAL, specifically the health
monitoring applications. As discussed beforehand, for the AAL to behave intelli-
gently, and to make decisions, there is a necessity for contextual information and
intelligence factors. Hence, the AI has resulted in a transformation from a
conventional system with limited or no intelligence to the modern systems with a

capability of making the right decisions.
Since the birth of AI, theory, techniques and technologies have become more and
more mature for handling larger amounts of information. Hence, this results in a
growth of AI research that now covers various subfields, including robotics, vision
and image recognition, natural language understanding, games, Machine Learning
(ML) and expert systems applied in specialised domains (e.g., medical diagnosis,
financial analysis and engineering fault finding).
ML is a subfield of AI discipline that is used in AAL health monitoring applica-
tions for learning, reasoning and decision-making tasks. ML techniques can be used
for two tasks, including:
Prediction: a prediction is an approach that is broadly used in the data mining
field to identify events that have not yet occurred. It is getting more attention from
the research community for the development of AAL systems to help with progno-
sis by predicting syndromes, medical conditions and critical events. For instance,
predictive models are used for predicting blood glucose level, further stress levels of
patient, medical condition such as hypertension, the survival of cardiac surgery
patients [32] or predicting lung cancer [33]. The predictive models are also referred
to as supervised learning models. According to the literature, the suitability of pre-
dictive models in AAL health monitoring applications is criticised due to the way
that they are handling the temporal patterns of vital signs data, and also, their poten-
tial high-risk impact on patient care [34].
Anomaly Detection: anomaly detection refers to the tasks and techniques of
finding unusual patterns or anomalies in data that do not correspond to the expected
pattern of the data. The anomaly detection algorithms in AAL health monitoring
applications are used to detect anomalies in a single or multivariate vital signs data
by learning the patterns of vital signs data. The anomalies of an individual vital sign
can be detected by abstracting its temporal patterns. In addition to this, in a scenario
where multivariate vital signs are collected for detection of anomalies, then the
spatiotemporal patterns of the vital signs must be considered as the changes in the
pattern of one vital sign data can influence temporal data patterns of its correlated
vital signs.
In ML, the nature of the anomalies is playing an important role in anomaly detec-
tion. According to [35], anomalies are categorised into three types, including: point
anomalies, contextual anomalies and collective anomalies.
ML techniques and algorithms can be categorised into three different types based
on the availability of data labels such as supervised, semi-supervised or unsuper-
vised techniques.
3.2.1 Supervised Techniques
Supervised ML techniques require labels to create anomaly or prediction models.

The label is not the only term used in literature and other terms such as notation and
ground truth also are used. The dataset for supervised ML is partitioned into
learning/training and testing portions, as usually 80% of the dataset is labelled for
training purposes for identifying normal and abnormal data points, whereas the
other 20% of dataset is used for testing, for example.
Two common types of supervised techniques are classification and regression.
The nature of data in input space determines which one of these methods should be
used. Naïve Bayes, SVM and logistic regression are among the algorithms that are
suitable for modelling the categorical data where linear regression or regression
model using SVM are preferred approach for continuous numerical data. Some
examples of SVM are discussed in a work by [36], including:
• Practical Swarm Optimisation SVM (PSO-SVM) approach for analysing
arrhythmia cordis.
• Hybrid SVM-based strategy to build a predictive model for breast cancer
diagnosis.
• Genetic SVM classifier for analysing the heart valve disease.
• PSO-based SVM model for identifying erythemato-squamous diseases.
The Classification techniques map data into target classes/groups where the
classes are defined based on data attributes and their values. There are two forms of
classification technique, binary and multilevel. In binary classification, there are
only two possible classes, for instance, two classes can model the health state of the
patients such as “diabetic” or “non-diabetic.” On the other hand, the multiclass clas-
sification model is suitable for scenarios where datasets consist of more than two
classes.
The Regression model is known as a statistical model which mathematically
explains the relationships and correlations among the variables. The variables in
regression models are commonly distinguished into two types, dependent variable
usually represented using “Y,” and independent/explanatory variable usually repre-
sented using “X.” There is always one dependent variable for one or multiple inde-
pendent variables. In regression, also an ordinary least square method is applied to
draw a line of best fit, which is often regarded as fitting the model [37].
3.2.2 Semi-supervised Techniques
The ML technique in semi-supervised scenario use a combination of the supervised

and unsupervised learning scheme, typically available training data consists of nor-
mal records and the deviation from these normal records is considered as an
anomaly.
3.2.3 Unsupervised Techniques
Unsupervised or descriptive ML techniques reflect uncontrolled situations for spe-

cifically experimental dataset. In unsupervised learning scenarios, the datasets are
not label and no training dataset is required. Two common types of unsupervised
techniques are clustering and association.
The clustering techniques are similar to classification except the clusters are not
predefined (not labelled), but rather defined by the data points. In clustering tech-
niques, input space is partitioned based on similarities between data points. The data
points within a cluster have greater similarity when comparing them to the data
points in other clusters [38, 39]. One example of clustering methods is K-Means
clustering utilised in a work by [36] to cluster health condition of patients into two
different group (high risk patient and low risk patient) based on high blood pressure
and cholesterol level.
The Association rules model is commonly used in the healthcare to identify and
abstract temporal dependencies of multivariate vital signs by constructing a set of
rules to define these temporal relationships. One use of association rules model is
highlighted by [34] to abstract and identify the correlation between two pairs of
vital signs for the diagnosis of clinical conditions (Inc. Myocardial Infraction,
Coronary Artery Bypass Graft, Angina and Resp. failure). The vital signs data
including HR with BP, and HR with Respiration Rate (RR) are collected from
MIMIC database. In this approach, the algorithm looks at impact that temporal
changes in HR have on the temporal behaviour of second vital sign (BP or RR).
4 Anomaly Detection in AAL
This section presents a review of recent literature on anomaly detection techniques

applied in AAL in particular health monitoring to manage long-term conditions
such as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), heart failure and diabetes.
Hassan et al. [40] proposed a Hybrid Real-time Remote Monitoring (HRRM)
framework for monitoring the elderly patients suffering from chronic diseases in
real time. The proposed HRRM processes and transfers the vital signs data includ-
ing heart rate, systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure to classify the
patient’s health condition (e.g., hypertension, hypotension). One of the challenges
in this work is to deal with missing data which may affect the model’s work continu-
ity and its performance. Hence, a version of Naïve Bayes classifier called NB-WOA
is proposed for feature selection. The accuracy of the HRRM is tested using six
classifiers and result indicated that Decision tree (J48), Random Forest (RF) and
Ripper (JRip) classifiers produced best performance compared to Naïve Bayes
(NB), Nearest Neighbour (IBK) and SVM. Moreover, several sampling techniques
are tested, and CB and SMOTE techniques produced the best performance. The
result of this testing suggested that the HRRM framework has a best performance in
classifying patients’ health status with high precision in real-time using JRip or J48
along with SMOTH or CB sampling techniques. Hence, the proposed framework

has succeeded in increasing the accuracy of classifications and minimising error rate.
Forkan and Khalil [41, 42] have presented a clinical decision making solution for
health remote monitoring, and PEACE-Home, an HMM-based probabilistic estima-
tor of abnormal clinical episodes using correlation patterns between vital signs.
Multiple vital signs including heart rate and blood pressure are measured to monitor
health status of the patients, and their simultaneous changes indicate a transition of
a patient’s health status. The Principal Component Analysis (PCA) method is used
to classify the patients with known medical conditions into multiple categories and
Hidden Markov Model (HMM) is used for probabilistic classification and predic-
tion of future clinical events. The result of experimentation indicated that the pro-
posed system could forecast clinical episodes and can generate real-time probabilistic
estimation of anomalies with very good accuracy.
Ribeiro Filho et al. [43] proposed Mobile Human Activity Recognition System
(MHARS), an AAL system to monitor patients with chronic diseases. Two features
are selected from the patients including Heart Rate (HR) and accelerometer and it
has achieved an accuracy of more than 80%, which is satisfactory. The MHARS was
also able to measure the activity intensity level by measuring the HR, and to provide
a rich set of features that includes the detection of user-defined situations.
Skubic, Guevara and Rantz [44] have proposed a model for detecting health
decline by monitoring behaviour and activity patterns of occupants. A one-
dimension feature (1-D) alert algorithm was then implemented to generate health
alerts to clinicians in a housing facility senior. Clinicians analyse each alert and
provide a rating on the clinical relevance. These ratings are then used as ground
truth for training and testing four classifiers, including Fuzzy Pattern Tree (FPT),
Fuzzy k-Nearest Neighbour (Fk-NN), Neural Network (NN) and Support Vector
Machine (SVM). The experiment was conducted using embedded sensor data and
health alert ratings collected on 21 seniors over nine months. Results have shown
that multi-dimensional classifiers perform significantly better than the 1-D algo-
rithm, with the best 6-D performance at 86% by FPT compared to 39% at
1-D. Additionally, the results have shown that a 6-D classifier that used the domain
knowledge (unsupervised approach) performs slightly better than the best 6-D clas-
sifier using supervised approach. The result of this study is then used to propose a
model for detecting health decline with in-home sensors.
Ghayvat et al. [45] presented a novel wellness indices modelling and detection
methodology to improve the anomaly detection over the multiple sensory data in the
AAL environment. The presented model classifies the activity in three stages and
the whole task of identifying the activities are split into definite room-based sub-
activities. The person’s activities are distinguished based on locality, period and
situation by applying the historical data, real-time and feedback received data. The
authors have pointed out that the activity of daily living is unrelated from one person
to another which merging the diversity of practices, lifestyle, and proficiencies in
AAL environment. The authors proposed the wellness indices analysis model to
overcome this obstacle which contrasts the observed actions with the “typical”
behavioural pattern of the individual.
Grguri, Mošmondor and Huljeni [46] developed an intelligent privacy-aware

home care assistance system, SmartHabits. The SmartHabits applying ML
approached to learn the user’s daily activity patterns, and automatically issuing
warnings if an abnormal situation is detected. Different components of the
SmartHabits system are to interpret data collected from user, learn and process con-
textual information, detect anomalies and issue warnings. In this work, unsuper-
vised MLs are applied on temporal data to abstract relevant data. As a part of the
anomaly detection engine, clustering-based and rule-based approaches are used for
identifying unusual behaviour of the user in a specific event or a specific situation.
Botia, Villa and Palma [47] proposed an AAL system to monitor elders who live
alone and want to keep living independently. The model scenario for developing this
system is based on some assumptions. One assumption is that system deactivated
when the elderly person is not at home, and second assumption is that the elderly
person has a pet; hence, simple sensors make the detector not to function properly.
Furthermore, a classifier is used for recognising potentially dangerous situations.
Several activity sensors are located at different places such as at bed and the arm-
chair to cover cases in which the elderly person is not moving and suffering from a
health critical event. In order to ensure an abnormal activity is detected, an approach
is used to enable and disable the classifier when needed. Additionally, a rule set is
designed to avoid unwanted sources of sensors activation. To overcome an issue
with wrong activation of the sensors in cases that the elderly person has a pet, the
sensors that are not sensible to pets are used. Temporal patterns of elderly activity
are also abstracted in this work to further model the sensor data and to improve the
detection rate of the proposed system.
5 Discussion
The literature has considered temporal knowledge as part of the program to charac-
terise the notion of intelligence. According to [48], reasoning and problem-solving
in most AAL health monitoring applications are logic-based. In AAL health moni-
toring systems, the data from patients in most cases are generated as a sequence
(time series) and collected continuously. The health data such as vital signs are cor-
related in time and space and have a temporal dependency. For example, temporal
and correlation attributes of vital signs (e.g., BP, HR, SpO2 and ECG measurements
(numeric)) are used in AAL health monitoring scenarios in diagnosis, prognosis and
treatment [49]. On the other hand, multi-variant vital signs in prognosis scenario are
used to predict a critical event such as a stroke or cardiac arrest, or temporal prop-
erty of data are used in activity recognition applications/scenarios where punctual
occurrences of preparing drinks, sleeping, walking is recorded for estimating haz-
ardous situations such as falling. Hence, a review of ML techniques and modelling
for prediction and anomaly detection tasks has been outlined. The reviewed tech-
niques covered the classification, regression, clustering and association techniques.
A more focused review was dedicated towards the anomaly detection in AAL envi-
ronment in particular health monitoring scenarios where vital signs of patients are
monitored to classify the patient’s medical conditions and to prevent the upcoming
critical events. There are limited works that specifically consider the adaptability
characteristic of AAL systems to the new normal patterns where ML approaches
such as statistical, nearest neighbour and density-based approaches are used. The
drawback of these approaches in AAL health monitoring is that they do not consider
the time dimension for computing an anomaly score. In AAL health application,
time dimension of vital signs is extracted and used to give a different semantical
meaning of similar data points that occur in different occasions. Additionally, the
current applications of AAL health monitoring do not consider the patterns of
patient’s daily activity (e.g., sleeping, walking, exercising); hence, extraction of this
knowledge can improve the context model of the health conditions to potentially
improves the performance of existing solutions where false detection of anomalies
(misdiagnosis) can be avoided [50]. Only a few works are currently focused on
elderly patient population and are mainly about tackling problems of AAL system
for telecare, wellness, digital participation and teleworking services. However, more
research efforts are needed to make these applications more robust and adaptive
towards the changes in the outside world. Current trends in AAL systems in particu-
lar, health monitoring indicate needs to introduce formal reasoning, as well as intel-
ligent data analysis techniques in the extraction of knowledge, regularities and
representative cases from patient data stored in medical record.
6 Conclusion
In this chapter, the suitability of assisted living systems is reviewed in particular the
AAL that are utilised for monitoring health conditions of elder people who are liv-
ing independent. Moreover, the AmI paradigm is discussed and its influence and
relation to the traditional assisted living tools is investigated. Different principles
and technologies that contributed to development of AAL in particular health moni-
toring applications are discussed. Furthermore, Ubiquitous/pervasive computing,
wearable technologies, context-awareness and AI are investigated followed by
study of related works conducted on anomaly detection in AAL health monitoring
application are reviewed.
The information that is discussed in this chapter will help researchers to under-
stand how each one of these paradigms and disciplines contributes to the intelli-
gence, ubiquitous and adaptivity of the AAL environment. It is obvious that one of
key step in future works for data mining in AAL in particular health monitoring
scenario should be a use of a language that can adequately represent the temporal
dimension of data and temporal correlations among multiple time series data [51].
Furthermore, the decision making in the AAL health monitoring application requires
a strong modelling and inferring approach with a suitable handling of contextual
information. Therefore, it is also crucial to include contextual information about a

patient, such as gender, age and medical history.
Future work is required to create rich data and to access datasets that capture
complex patterns of the environment which can be used to train and test the ML
algorithms in the AAL Application to make them more adaptive to the new normal
patterns of data. In the literature, most AAL applications consider monitoring in
clinical contexts; therefore, it is essential that future works consider evaluating the
performance of the AAL application focus on behavioural patterns and needs of
people in the context of the AAL environment.
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Index
A E
Ambient assisted living (AAL), 20, 22, 92, E-mobility charging, 69
124, 145–161 Energy community, 40–69
Ambient intelligence (AmI), 107, Energy management, 19, 40, 46, 48–51,
145, 148–157 55, 59, 61–63, 67, 68, 123,
Anomaly detection, 146, 155, 157–160 130–131
Artificial intelligence (AI), 5, 11, 13, 21, 32, Energy sharing, 53–55
60, 72, 95, 96, 130, 145–161 Exposure, 2, 9, 11, 13, 14, 19–32
Association rule mining, 122, 130, 131, 134,
135, 137, 138
F
Facilities management, 121–138
B
Big data, 1–14, 72, 122, 128–131, 135–138
Big Data Analytics, 7, 122, 128–130, 135, 137 H
Blockchain-light technology, 56, 57 Health, 1, 2, 5, 9–11, 13, 19–26, 28, 29, 31,
32, 74, 76, 92, 94, 106, 127, 145–150,
152–154, 156–160
C Health monitoring, 91, 145, 148, 150,
Climate-neutral, 39–69 152–155, 157, 159, 160
COVID-19, 2, 3, 14, 25, 26, 32, 121, 122, 126, Human activity recognition (HAR), 91–115,
134, 138 147, 158
Cross-sector, 54
I
D Internet of Things (IoT), 2, 5, 6, 20, 22,
Data mining, 121–138, 146, 153, 155, 160 73, 83, 91, 122, 123, 129,
Deep learning, 11, 12, 30, 77, 86, 96, 97, 135, 146
105–108, 111, 113, 114 IoT technological tools, 12
© European Alliance for Innovation 2023 165

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26685-0
166 Index
L S
Load management algorithms, 57, 64 Sensor technologies, 92, 138,
149–152
Short-term, 19–32, 42, 97, 147
M Smart buildings, 1–14, 73, 93,
Machine learning (ML), 8, 11, 12, 21, 24, 32, 121–138
77, 86, 93–97, 104, 105, 109–113, 115, Smart environment, 20, 21
122, 124, 130, 131, 146, 147, 152, 153, Smart garden, 71–86
155–157, 159–161 Smart metering, 137
Monitoring, 2, 8–11, 13, 20–23, 27, 29, 30, Smart watering, 73, 80, 85
32, 46, 51, 59, 60, 67, 72, 73, 75–80,
84–86, 92, 94, 106, 107, 123, 125,
126, 131, 132, 145, 147–150, W
152–154, 157, 158, 160, 161 Wearable sensor, 94, 95, 97, 103–105,
149, 152
Wireless sensors network (WSN), 21,
P 22, 75, 151
Power to Heat (PtH), 45

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EAI/Springer Innovations in Communication

ISSN 2522-8595 ISSN 2522-8609 (electronic)

© European Alliance for Innovation 2023

Oliveira do Hospital, Coimbra, Portugal Gonçalo Marques

Environmental Data Control in Smart Buildings: Big Data Analysis

Gonçalo Marques holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science Engineering and is a

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 1

communication technologies [5]. The application of technology resources in smart

2 Definition of Smart Building

First, it is necessary to highlight a controversy between the “intelligent” and “smart”

Fig. 1 Indoor smart

The development of smart buildings may be translated into notable benefits

3 Definition of Internet of Things

Fig. 2 IoT-based systems architecture in smart buildings

4 Big Data Analysis and Governance

Fig. 3 Basic features

5 IoT Technological Systems for Smart Buildings

Another practical application of IoT technology in smart buildings is associated

5.5 Indoor Air Quality

Environmental control in buildings (indoor spaces) is a primordial action to know

Based on the previous evidence, it is deduced that IoT technology implemented

1. Madruga, D. G. (2022). In J. Saini, M. Dutta, G. Marques, & M. N. Halgamuge (Eds.), A

Tahmeena Khan and Alfred J. Lawrence

Growing population and urbanization have led to environmental deterioration and

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 19

1.1 Role of Technological Intervention in Air

1.2 Internet of Things (IoT) and Applicability

1.3 Fuzzy Logic Controller

A fuzzy inference system is used to analyze indoor pollutants in rule-based opera-

1.4 Air Pollution Sensors

1.5 Air Quality Assessment Through Edge and Cloud

Edge computing enables a cost-effective measurement including personal exposure

2 Health Risk Associated with Pollution Particularly

2.1 Risk Assessment Associated with Short-Term Exposure

3 The Diwali Mayhem and Need for Technological

3.1 Health Effects Experienced After Firework Burning

A questionnaire survey conducted with 51 doctors of the city post-Diwali, 2021

Table 1 Twenty-four-hour average concentration of pollutants during Diwali 2021

Fig. 1 Common troubles reported post-Diwali

3.2.1 Suggested Health Risk Assessment Tools for Indoor Air Quality

significant computational simulation strategies used for short-term exposure

3.2.2 Human Exposure Model (HEM)

3.2.3 Integrated Fuzzy-Stochastic, Proximity and Interpolation Modeling

The integrated fuzzy-stochastic modeling (IFSM) works on Monte Carlo simulation

The dynamic changes in the pollutants’ concentration may be predicted by high-­

4 Challenges and Future Opportunities

Fig. 3 Suggested dummy model to curb Diwali hazard

occupants. The most significant application of interconnected IoT-based devices is

Severin Beucker, Walter Konhäuser, Ingo Schuck, and Olaf Ziemann

ADSL Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 39

PtH Power to Heat

Fig. 1 CO2 emissions from 1980 to 2020 [6]

Fig. 2 CO2 emission of private households in Germany

Fig. 3 Energy strategy dilemmas

2 Energy Production in Buildings with Reduced

With increasing decentralized electricity production especially in the building sec-

2.1 Electrical Energy Production in Buildings with Less

Fig. 4 Energy supply with power and heat

Oliveira do Hospital, Coimbra, Portugal Gonçalo Marques

Environmental Data Control in Smart Buildings: Big Data Analysis

2 Definition of Smart Building

3 Definition of Internet of Things

4 Big Data Analysis and Governance

5 IoT Technological Systems for Smart Buildings

5.5 Indoor Air Quality

1.1 Role of Technological Intervention in Air

1.2 Internet of Things (IoT) and Applicability

1.3 Fuzzy Logic Controller

1.4 Air Pollution Sensors

1.5 Air Quality Assessment Through Edge and Cloud

2 Health Risk Associated with Pollution Particularly

2.1 Risk Assessment Associated with Short-Term Exposure

3 The Diwali Mayhem and Need for Technological

3.1 Health Effects Experienced After Firework Burning

3.2.1 Suggested Health Risk Assessment Tools for Indoor Air Quality

3.2.2 Human Exposure Model (HEM)

3.2.3 Integrated Fuzzy-Stochastic, Proximity and Interpolation Modeling

The dynamic changes in the pollutants’ concentration may be predicted by high-

4 Challenges and Future Opportunities

2 Energy Production in Buildings with Reduced

2.1 Electrical Energy Production in Buildings with Less

2.2 Thermal Energy Production in Buildings with Less

3 Digital Control of Real Estate with Efficient Processes

3.1 Digital Solutions in Real Estate

4 Energy Communities with Decentralized Energy Exchange

4.1 Concepts for the Formation of Energy Communities

4.1.2 Energy Community with Electricity Exchange Via the Grid

4.2 Blockchain-Light Technology for Recording and Billing

Blockchain-Light technology is used for the continuous, simultaneous, and fine-

5 E-Mobility Concepts and Algorithms at Work

5.1 Starting Point of Concept Development for Charging

5.2 Considered Points of Concept Development

5.3 Impact of Bottlenecks and Solution by

5.4 Algorithms Are the Key for Integrating Many Widely

5.4.1 Enterprise IT: From Business Processes to Building Technology

5.4.2 Algorithms at Their Best

5.4.3 Strategy Example: Dynamic Phase Allocation

6 General Procedure for Requirement Profile

2.1 Smart Terrace Garden

2.2 Small-Scale Water Conservation Projects

2.3 Other Resilient Smart Farming and Gardening Systems

2.4 Garden Monitoring Systems

2.5 Other Microcontroller Projects

2.6 Other Educational Garden Kits

4 Challenges in IoT-Enabled Water Irrigation

A variety of sensors, controllers, and actuators must be integrated to make IoT-

4.2 Security in IoT-Based Systems