by Shane Henson — July 1, 2013—Occupancy detectors are used in buildings worldwide to reduce electricity costs; however, as the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) notes, too often they leave people in the dark through their inability to fully sense when someone is in the room. To remedy this problem, the NREL has developed and made available for license the image processing occupancy sensor (IPOS), which combines an inexpensive camera and computer vision algorithms that can recognize the presence of human occupants.
IPOS is comprised of a small camera sensor integrated with a high-speed embedded microprocessor and novel software modules. IPOS can detect with almost 100 percent accuracy the number of people in an area, spots where there are no people, the level of illuminance, and other variables, say NREL researchers.
IPOS’s combined powers can, for example, detect that there are five people walking down aisle five at a retail store, but none in aisles four or six. It can signal the lights to stay on in aisle 5, but dim somewhat in the other two aisles. Big-box retail stores, reluctant to even dim the lights if customers are anywhere in the store, currently miss out on big energy savings because their existing motion sensors aren’t accurate enough to detect vacancies by aisle or section, explain NREL researchers.
What’s more, an IPOS system set up in a big-box store could not only help save energy, but could also be used to play videos or commercials when occupants approach a screen or an exhibit, or to control animations for promoting products or services. And in an office environment, IPOS can detect if there are people staying late, no matter how still they are sitting, and deliver that information so the building uses just the lights that are needed.
The information can also be used to make instantaneous decisions on the amount of ventilation, air conditioning, or daylighting the occupants of the office need at that particular moment. And it can signal when security officers should be alerted.
The sensors will likely sell for between $100 and $200 once a licensee starts producing them in volume, says the NREL.
