CERN Accelerating science

Sensing Spaces

Sensing Spaces

Challenge: How can we empower the individuals to affect their surroundings by using a combination of environmental data and interpretations of human behaviors? And how could we enhance this with context-aware, personalized, and anticipatory services on e.g. well being, security, and safety?

While systems already exist for making the home and industrial workplaces more comfortable and productive, everyday work spaces like offices, small shops, and hotels do not have good access to these solutions. Unfortunately, this means that for most Facility Managers, knowledge of what is happening inside the buildings they manage is almost non-existent. Our solution, therefore, focused on getting information from the building to the Facility Manager.

We decided to use sound to capture the sonic biorhythm of the entire space which allows an intelligent software application to detect when things go wrong, many times even before the failures become expensive problems. We also created an easy way for the people within the buildings to tell the Facility Manager what is happening from a human perspective. By combining these two information gathering methods, our solution gives the Facility manager a holistic view of the buildings they manage in order to prevent, maintain, and improve the quality of everyday spaces.

Project documentation