Is the Internet of the ears the next important step for smart homes?

Houses are becoming more "smart" for decades, but the next generation of smart homes could offer what two scientists at Case Western Reserve University call an "Internet of the ears".

Today, the smart home includes appliances, entertainment systems, security cameras, and interconnected lighting, heating, and cooling systems that connect to each other and the Internet. They can be viewed and controlled remotely via a computer or smartphone applications.

Interconnection technology for commercial, industrial or government buildings, or even whole communities, is called the "Internet of Things" or IoT.

However, two professors of electrical engineering and computer science from the Case School of Engineering have experimented with a new series of sensors. This system would read not only the vibrations, sounds – and even the specific gait, or other movements – associated with the people and animals of a building, but also any subtle modification of the existing ambient electric field.

While it may still be around ten years from now, the house of the future could be a building that adapts to your business with only a few small sensors hidden in the walls and floor and without the need of invasive cameras.

A building that "listens"

"We are trying to create a building that can listen to humans inside," said Ming-Chun Huang, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science.

"We use principles similar to those of the human ear, in which the vibrations are captured and our algorithms decipher them to determine your specific movements. That's why we call it the Internet of the ears.

Huang directs research on human walking and motion tracking, while Soumyajit Mandal, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science for the T. and A. Schroeder domains, focuses on the detection of vibrations and existing electrical field changes caused by human presence. or even pets.

"There is in fact a constant 60 Hz electric field all around us and because people are somewhat conductive, they cut the field a bit," said Mandal. "Thus, by measuring the disturbances in this field, we are able to determine their presence, even their breathing, even in the absence of vibrations associated with sound.

Huang and Mandal presented their work at the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Sensor Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, last year, and published additional details in this year's IEEE sensors at New Delhi, India. A longer version of their results will appear in the IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement Journal early next year.

Mandal said that they had used as little as four small sensors in the walls and floor of a room. Regarding confidentiality issues, Mandal said the system would not be able to identify individuals, although it could be calibrated to recognize the different paces of people.

Energy savings, building safety

They expect the system to offer many benefits.

"The first benefit will be the energy efficiency of buildings, particularly in the lighting and heating fields, because the systems adapt to the way humans move from one room to another. allows you to spread the energy more efficiently, "said Huang.

Another benefit could be the ability to track and measure the structural integrity and safety of a building, based on human occupancy – which would be essential during an earthquake or hurricane, for example Huang said.

"This has not really been explored to what we've seen, but we do know that humans create a dynamic load on buildings, especially in older buildings," Huang said. "In collaboration with our colleague YeongAe Heo in Civil Engineering, we are trying to predict whether there will be structural damage due to the increase in weight or load, depending on the number of people on the ground or how they are spread over it. "