'Smart Homes' Could Track Your Electrical Noise
From: New Scientist - 09/10/2007
By: Kurt Kleiner

Instead of a house embedded with sensors, smart homes of the future may track
a homeowner's movements by monitoring the electrical noise made by different
devices throughout the house as they are turned on and off. "The problem I
see with a lot of ubiquitous computing research is that it requires the
creation of new infrastructure and technology," says Georgia Institute of
Technology computer scientist Gregory D. Abowd. "A lot of what we have been
focusing on is how you can achieve some of these things without requiring Joe
Blow to buy new stuff." Abowd and colleagues have developed a device
connected to a laptop that plugs into a standard wall socket and monitors
noise in the electrical supply caused by turning devices on or off. Software
analyses the frequencies of noise created in the power line and is trained to
recognize noise from specific appliances. The system was tested on 19
different electrical devices in six different homes with 85 percent to 90
percent accuracy. The system could be used to automatically adjust
temperature controls and sound systems as people move about the house, or
monitor the activity levels of older people living alone. The only downside
to the system is that it takes about four hours to calibrate a typical house,
but installing networks of cameras and sensors takes a long time as well,
Abowd says. The researchers also need to prove that the device can
distinguish between multiple devices running at once. Abowd will present his
research at next week week's International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing
in Innsbrook, Austria. 

Read the entire article at:
http://technology.newscientist.com/article/dn12620-smart-homes-could-track-your-electrical-noise-.html
http://technology.newscientist.com/article/dn12620

Links:
Gregory D. Abowd
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/fac/Gregory.Abowd/
http://www-static.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/people/official/gregory.abowd/

International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing
http://www.ubicomp2007.org/