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Our Smart Office integrative effort will showcase a variety of technologies developed in ADSC’s Interactive Digital Media (IDM) and Smart Grid subprograms, all working together to create value from low-level visual and environmental information. The Smart Office demonstration will show how to analyze and understand the typical daily activities taking place at ADSC, using data gathered from a variety of low-level sensors that observe aspects of the office environment, objects, and people, and their actions and interactions. The sensors include color and depth cameras, microphones, electrical load monitors, and temperature, humidity, and carbon dioxide sensors. Fusion and semantic analysis of the data gathered by these sensors will provide users with an overview of current activities, allow them to analyze trends in space usage and activities, and help them plan for the future.

For example, suppose ADSC’s office manager wants to know who was the last person to pour a cup of coffee from the kitchen coffee pot. To provide her with a name, the smart office analyzes data from depth cameras to recognize the action of pouring a cup of coffee, correctly distinguishing it from the related actions of peering into the pot and refilling it with water. To determine the identity of the pourer, the smart office registers the depth camera footage with footage from a conventional camera, and uses ADSC’s face recognition technology to determine who the pourer was. As this example shows, the data from these sensors will be invaluable training data for ADSC’s projects on recognizing the activities and failed actions of daily life.

As a more complex example, consider the usage of ADSC’s meeting rooms and how it evolves over time. How many people typically attend the meetings in each room? What times and days are most popular? Do some work groups use the rooms more than others? How does the arrival of a visiting Illinois faculty member affect the meeting room usage during his or her stay?

ADSC’s Smart Office project will showcase the following capabilities:

ADSC is currently working to deploy the necessary sensors and integrate the smart office enabling technologies developed in ADSC’s IDM and smart grid subprograms.