Assessment of WSN and RFID Technologies for Real-Time Occupancy Information

Abstract

Real-time occupancy information is valuable to the building industry for a wide variety of applications such as on-site safety management, energy conservation, emergency response and so on. With the emergence of various technologies that can potentially be used for indoor location sensing (ILS), the building industry is in search for an ILS solution to provide accurate and cost efficient occupancy information. This study assesses two ILS systems that are built on two promising modalities: radio frequency identification (RFID) and wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Two algorithms were proposed and tested in a computer lab with an area of 235 m 2 . Six occupants, who were attached with both RFID tags and WSN nodes, were tracked simultaneously. The occupants remained seated throughout the test, and the occupancy was monitored. The results show that the proposed systems were able to provide accurate room level occupancy information majority of the time, and that the choice of algorithm and technology affected the uniformity of the results.

Evolution of Rfid Application in Construction

“…4) Safety: One benefit of RFID is that it does not require a clear view of a tag for the user to detect and receive the stored information. Although a range of works are available in connection with fire support [19], the issue is still not adequately addressed. The monitoring of structural components that are not accessible to users, such as piping spools or the electrical supply may contribute to a potential improvement of the protection of buildings.…”

Towards energy efficient buildings: how ICTs can convert advances?

“…A lot of works have been published in the two past decades about monitoring energy building with Wireless Sensor Network (Calis et al, 2011), (Grindvoll et al, 2012) (Dong et al, 2010). These systems can sense physical environment (temperature, air quality, lightning, occupancy …).…”

Evolution of RFID Applications in Construction: A Literature Review

“…One of the most extended and promising wireless non-contact systems is radio frequency identification (RFID) [ 4 ], a technology based on the exchange of information by means of electromagnetic signals. Because of its ability to identify and track objects, RFID is being used for diverse applications: aviation, construction and facility management, health, retailing, logistics or security, among others.…”