NILM techniques for intelligent home energy management and ambient assisted living: a review

The ongoing deployment of smart meters and different commercial devices has made electricity disaggregation feasible in buildings and households, based on a single measure of the current and, sometimes, of the voltage. Energy disaggregation is intended to separate the total power consumption into specific appliance loads, which can be achieved by applying Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring (NILM) techniques with a minimum invasion of privacy. NILM techniques are becoming more and more widespread in recent years, as a consequence of the interest companies and consumers have in efficient energy consumption and management. This work presents a detailed review of NILM methods, focusing particularly on recent proposals and their applications, particularly in the areas of Home Energy Management Systems (HEMS) and Ambient Assisted Living (AAL), where the ability to determine the on/off status of certain devices can provide key information for making further decisions. As well as complementing previous reviews on the NILM field and providing a discussion of the applications of NILM in HEMS and AAL, this paper provides guidelines for future research in these topics.Agência financiadora: Programa Operacional Portugal 2020 and Programa Operacional Regional do Algarve 01/SAICT/2018/39578 Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia through IDMEC, under LAETA: SFRH/BSAB/142998/2018 SFRH/BSAB/142997/2018 UID/EMS/50022/2019 Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-La-Mancha, Spain: SBPLY/17/180501/000392 Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (SOC-PLC project): TEC2015-64835-C3-2-R MINECO/FEDERinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Real-time human ambulation, activity, and physiological monitoring:taxonomy of issues, techniques, applications, challenges and limitations

Automated methods of real-time, unobtrusive, human ambulation, activity, and wellness monitoring and data analysis using various algorithmic techniques have been subjects of intense research. The general aim is to devise effective means of addressing the demands of assisted living, rehabilitation, and clinical observation and assessment through sensor-based monitoring. The research studies have resulted in a large amount of literature. This paper presents a holistic articulation of the research studies and offers comprehensive insights along four main axes: distribution of existing studies; monitoring device framework and sensor types; data collection, processing and analysis; and applications, limitations and challenges. The aim is to present a systematic and most complete study of literature in the area in order to identify research gaps and prioritize future research directions

Non-intrusive load monitoring techniques for activity of daily living recognition

Esta tesis nace con la motivación de afrontar dos grandes problemas de nuestra era: la falta de recursos energéticos y el envejecimiento de la población. Respecto al primer problema, nace en la primera década de este siglo el concepto de Smart Grids con el objetivo de alcanzar la eficiencia energética. Numerosos países comienzan a realizar despliegues masivos de contadores inteligentes ("Smart Meters"), lo que despierta el interés de investigadores que comienzan a desarrollar nuevas técnicas para predecir la demanda. Así, los sistemas NILM (Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring) tratan de predecir el consumo individual de los dispositivos conectados a partir de un único sensor: el contador inteligente. Por otra parte, los grandes avances en la medicina moderna han permitido que nuestra esperanza de vida aumente considerablemente. No obstante, esta longevidad, junto con la baja fertilidad en los países desarrollados, tiene un efecto secundario: el envejecimiento de la población. Unos de los grandes avances es la incorporación de la tecnología en la vida cotidiana, lo que ayuda a los más mayores a llevar una vida independiente. El despliegue de una red de sensores dentro de la vivienda permite su monitorización y asistencia en las tareas cotidianas. Sin embargo, son intrusivos, no escalables y, en algunas ocasiones, de alto coste, por lo que no están preparados para hacer frente al incremento de la demanda de esta comunidad. Esta tesis doctoral nace de la motivación de afrontar estos problemas y tiene dos objetivos principales: lograr un modelo de monitorización sostenible para personas mayores y, a su vez, dar un valor añadido a los sistemas NILM que despierte el interés del usuario final. Con este objetivo, se presentan nuevas técnicas de monitorización basadas en NILM, aunando lo mejor de ambos campos. Esto supone un ahorro considerable de recursos en la monitorización, ya que únicamente se necesita un sensor: el contador inteligente; lo cual da escalabilidad a estos sistemas. Las contribuciones de esta tesis se dividen en dos bloques principales. En el primero se proponen nuevas técnicas NILM optimizadas para la detección de la actividad humana. Así, se desarrolla una propuesta basada en detección de eventos (conexiones de dispositivos) en tiempo real y su clasificación a un dispositivo. Con el objetivo de que pueda integrarse en contadores inteligentes. Cabe destacar que el clasificador se basa en modelos generalizados de dispositivos y no necesita conocimiento específico de la vivienda. El segundo bloque presenta tres nuevas técnicas de monitorización de personas mayores basadas en NILM. El objetivo es proporcionar una monitorización básica pero eficiente y altamente escalable, ahorrando en recursos. Los procesos Cox, log Gaussian Cox Processes (LGCP), monitorizan un único dispositivo si la rutina está estrechamente ligada a este. Así, se propone un sistema de alarmas si se detectan cambios en el comportamiento. LGCP tiene la ventaja de poder modelar periodicidades e incertidumbres propias del comportamiento humano. Cuando la rutina no depende de un único dispositivo, se proponen dos técnicas: una basada en gaussianas mixtas, Gaussian Mixture Models (GMM); y la otra basada en la Teoría de la Evidencia de Dempster-Shafer (DST). Ambas monitorizan y detectan deterioros en la actividad, causados por enfermedades como la demencia y el alzhéimer. Únicamente DST usa incertidumbres que simulan mejor el comportamiento humano y, por tanto, permite alarmas en caso de un repentino desvío. Finalmente, todas las propuestas han sido validadas mediante la evaluación de métricas y la obtención de resultados experimentales. Para ello, se han usado medidas de escenarios reales que han sido recopiladas en bases de datos. Los resultados obtenidos han sido satisfactorios, demostrando que este tipo de monitorización es posible y muy beneficioso para nuestra sociedad. Además, se ha dado a lugar nuevas propuestas que serán desarrolladas en el futuro. Códigos UNESCO: 120320 - sistemas de control medico, 332201 – distribución de la energía, 120701 – análisis de actividades, 120304 – inteligencia artificial, 120807 – plausibilidad, 221402 – patrones

Evaluating Human Activity and Usage Patterns of Appliances with Smart Meters

2022 IEEE International Symposium on Medical Measurements and Applications (MeMeA), 22-24 June 2022, Messina, Italy.Population ageing is becoming a key issue for most western countries, due to the challenges that it poses to the sustainability of future healthcare systems. In this context, many proposals and development are emerging trying to enhance the independent living of elderly and cognitive impaired people at their own homes. For that purpose, the massive deployment of smart meter at houses and buildings, initially focused on improving the energy management, has become a useful tool to provide the society with a variety of services and applications that can be employed for independent living. This work proposes the use of a commercial smart meter that delivers the disaggregated consumption per appliance every hour. This device has been installed on a test house during a training period of two months, in order to infer the behavior routines in the usage of the microwave. After the training, every new day can be compared to the obtained usage pattern of that appliance, in order to launch a notification when the day routine significantly differs. Similarly, since the use of the microwave is related to cooking, activities such as breakfast, lunch or dinner, may also be monitored and/or compared to a trained pattern. The proposal has been validated preliminary with experimental data coming from the aforementioned household.Agencia Estatal de InvestigaciónUniversidad de Alcal

Capacitive sensing algorithm for elderly activity detection scheme indoor environment

The aim of this research is to assist elderlies in accomplishing their everyday tasks through facilitating their home atmosphere with sensors, actuators, and computational resources. A significant effort is needed to incorporate them to make them effective in daily life. Particularly, the tracking and detection of elderly people’s daily tasks, associated with the information of the user's location in the home environment signify the key pillars of this work. The detecting and tracking algorithm uses the sensory data to indicate an associated situation in order to allow elderly people with special requirements. Monitoring the elderly’s behaviour over a long period of time will allow prediction of their forthcoming alarming situation which allows the finding of the elderly’s behavioural deviations in their everyday routine. The proposed resolution has been methodically assessed in the laboratory

Pervasive Technologies and Support for Independent Living

A broad range of pervasive technologies are used in many domains, including healthcare: however, there appears to be little work examining the role of such technologies in the home, or the different wants and needs of elderly users. Additionally, there exist ethical issues surrounding the use of highly personal healthcare-related data, and interface issues centred on the novelty of the technologies and the disabilities experienced by the users. This report examines these areas, before considering the ways in which they might come together to help support independent-living users with disabilities which may be age-related

Overcoming barriers and increasing independence: service robots for elderly and disabled people

This paper discusses the potential for service robots to overcome barriers and increase independence of elderly and disabled people. It includes a brief overview of the existing uses of service robots by disabled and elderly people and advances in technology which will make new uses possible and provides suggestions for some of these new applications. The paper also considers the design and other conditions to be met for user acceptance. It also discusses the complementarity of assistive service robots and personal assistance and considers the types of applications and users for which service robots are and are not suitable

Use of nonintrusive sensor-based information and communication technology for real-world evidence for clinical trials in dementia

Cognitive function is an important end point of treatments in dementia clinical trials. Measuring cognitive function by standardized tests, however, is biased toward highly constrained environments (such as hospitals) in selected samples. Patient-powered real-world evidence using information and communication technology devices, including environmental and wearable sensors, may help to overcome these limitations. This position paper describes current and novel information and communication technology devices and algorithms to monitor behavior and function in people with prodromal and manifest stages of dementia continuously, and discusses clinical, technological, ethical, regulatory, and user-centered requirements for collecting real-world evidence in future randomized controlled trials. Challenges of data safety, quality, and privacy and regulatory requirements need to be addressed by future smart sensor technologies. When these requirements are satisfied, these technologies will provide access to truly user relevant outcomes and broader cohorts of participants than currently sampled in clinical trials