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A cognitive model for recognizing human behaviours in smart homes

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Abstract

This paper describes strategies for monitoring human behaviour within a smart home and, in a broader perspective, for context-assessment in cognitive systems. The proposed framework, which is inspired by a cognitive theory called Computational Functionalism, is aimed at integrating ontology and logic based approaches to context representation and recognition. Two are the assumptions underlying the model: (1) the availability of an ontology (i.e., a “concept–role” representation of what is relevant in a given domain); (2) a simple inference scheme (i.e., subsumption between descriptions of elements within the ontology). The context model is formally defined adopting a structural approach that describes contexts and situations as hierarchical structures grounded with respect to the ontology. Examples are presented to discuss the proposed model.

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Notes

  1. Subsumption is a binary operator acting upon two descriptions \({\mathcal{D}}_1\) and \({\mathcal{D}}_2\) of concepts or concept instances: it returns true if \({\mathcal{D}}_1\) is more general than \({\mathcal{D}}_2\), and false otherwise.

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  3. For more information please visit the project website available at http://ailab.eecs.wsu.edu/casas/.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. DIST—Department of Communication, Computers and System Science, University of Genova, Genoa, Italy

    Fulvio Mastrogiovanni, Antonio Sgorbissa & Renato Zaccaria

Authors
  1. Fulvio Mastrogiovanni
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  2. Antonio Sgorbissa
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  3. Renato Zaccaria
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Correspondence to Fulvio Mastrogiovanni.

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Mastrogiovanni, F., Sgorbissa, A. & Zaccaria, R. A cognitive model for recognizing human behaviours in smart homes. Ann. Telecommun. 65, 523–538 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12243-010-0171-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12243-010-0171-5

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