Fault detection for binary sensors in smart home environments

Abstract

Experiments in assisted living confirm that such systems can provide context-aware services that enable occupants to remain active and independent. They also demonstrate that abnormal sensor events hamper the correct identification of critical (and potentially life-threatening) situations, and that existing learning, estimation, and time-based approaches are inaccurate and inflexible when applied to multiple people sharing a living space. We propose a technique that integrates the semantics of sensor readings with statistical outlier detection. We evaluate the technique against four real-world datasets that include multiple individuals, and show consistent rates of anomaly detection across different environments.