Efficient wireless signal emitting sensor distribution within an environment modified for the needs of the aging population

摘要

With the average human life span increasing significantly due to numerous achievements in medical science, the need to modify the residential environments of individuals has grown accordingly. Some of these changes involve building fast and responsive systems designed to continuously monitor the activities within the space they are situated in. Such sensors may vary from simple light switches that react to movement to complicated systems that search for specific events and alert the designated party. The distribution of such sensors greatly dictates the overall system reliability. In this paper the problem of finding the optimal sensor distribution will be elaborated with focus on a solution using a computer program designed on the idea of genetic algorithms that can solve the problem in a simple and cheap manner. The program uses rudimentary data as input, such as floor plans and regions of interest in the form of a picture. Using a hybrid genetic algorithm, while taking physical properties like signal attenuation, dissipation and resonance in account, it provides a result in a form of a sensor distribution pattern such that the overall signal strength is maximized.