Low-Cost Thermal Camera-Based Counting Occupancy Meter Facilitating Energy Saving in Smart Buildings

Marek Kraft, Przemysław Aszkowski, Dominik Pieczyński and Michał Fularz
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Marek Kraft: Institute of Robotics and Machine Intelligence, Poznań University of Technology, Piotrowo 3A, 60-965 Poznań, Poland
Przemysław Aszkowski: Institute of Robotics and Machine Intelligence, Poznań University of Technology, Piotrowo 3A, 60-965 Poznań, Poland
Dominik Pieczyński: Institute of Robotics and Machine Intelligence, Poznań University of Technology, Piotrowo 3A, 60-965 Poznań, Poland
Michał Fularz: Institute of Robotics and Machine Intelligence, Poznań University of Technology, Piotrowo 3A, 60-965 Poznań, Poland

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 15, 1-12

Abstract: Using passive infrared sensors is a well-established technique of presence monitoring. While it can significantly reduce energy consumption, more savings can be made when utilising more modern sensor solutions coupled with machine learning algorithms. This paper proposes an improved method of presence monitoring, which can accurately derive the number of people in the area supervised with a low-cost and low-energy thermal imaging sensor. The method utilises U-Net-like convolutional neural network architecture and has a low parameter count, and therefore can be used in embedded scenarios. Instead of providing simple, binary information, it learns to estimate the occupancy density function with the person count and approximate location, allowing the system to become considerably more flexible. The tests show that the method compares favourably to the state of the art solutions, achieving significantly better results.

Keywords: heating; air conditioning; deep learning; building management systems; thermal imaging (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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