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Internet of Things (IoT), home automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI
The world is still fighting in 2021 with the effects of the pandemic, and most of the measures regarding social distancing are still enforced in order to contain the spread of the virus, despite the on-going vaccination campaigns. The labor sector, as well as the health and education sectors, are still trying to respect their obligation to carry out their activities in remote form, struggling with network malfunctions and the ‘digital divide’. As stated in the preamble of the Digital education plan:
[…] COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the digital transition. While telework and distance learning have become a reality for millions of people in the EU, the limitations of our current digital preparedness were often also revealed. The pandemic has accentuated the digital skills gap that already existed and new inequalities are emerging as many people do not have the required level of digital skills or are in workplaces or schools lagging behind in digitalization41 .
What it is clear from this picture is that the traditional in presence way to work, study and assist patients in the health sector, are not just temporarily changed. They are presently the subject of an insightful transformation, with long-term scenarios still difficult to foresee.
Internet of Things (IoT), home automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Modern buildings, in general, still obey the three principles of architecture set out by Vitruvius in “De Architectura”, namely Firmitas, Utilitas and Venustas42 .
41 Communication, European Skills, 2020. p. 1. 42 “Haec autem ita fieri debent, ut habeatur ratio firmitatis, utilitatis, venustatis”. (In all things to be made, the aim must be solidity, usefulness
They are historically the privileged places where humans develop their social interactions. While Vitruvius’ principles are still substantially valid today, the modern reinterpretation of the ancient idea of Utilitas forms the context of this book, where it is addressed in relation to the technological (and sometimes ethical) understanding of the functionalities of contemporary homes and cities. Most of the built environment in modern cities43 consists of physical walled spaces, where people spend most of their lifetime, whether in residential buildings or at their workplaces. These personal spaces are more than just physical residences; they often become the intimate safe dimension where citizens can live and rest, enclosed environments where modern technologies meet (and sometimes clash) with humanity, bringing to mind Le Corbusier’s early twentieth-century definition of the house as “…a machine to live in”44 . Today, however, new and groundbreaking elements are emerging. Houses, having increasingly improved support functions for the inhabitants and equipped with devices and instruments that expand their efficiency, are evolving towards a new stage of interactive technology.
and beauty...), Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, De Architectura, liber I, 2. 43 The term ‘built environment’ appears in the 2014 essay Moving forward for an Ageing Society: Bridging the Distances, and it could be defined as the place where schools, hospitals, social services and healthcare facilities, and in general, highly specialized services, are available not far from residential areas, in order to improve citizens’ quality of life, Cinquepalmi F., et al. 2014, Moving forward for an Ageing Society: Bridging the Distances, Palombi, Rome, p. 17. 44 ‘La maison est une machine à habiter’ Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, known as Le Corbusier 1923, Vers une architecture, les editions G. Cres et C. Paris, p. 83
Home automation or Domotics45, houses that ‘learn’ how to interact directly with humans, are increasingly able to meet their needs and learn from their habits. Although most of the technologies concerned are well known separately and already in use, the real innovation lies in their combination and reorganization under the Domotics umbrella and in connection with Artificial intelligence. This will not mean increasing the technological complexity of houses by adding advanced technologies and devices, but rather transforming houses and buildings into technological-intelligent objects per se, able to elaborate tailored solutions according to their analysis of the behaviors of the human inhabitants, and gradually acquiring the ability to adapt to their needs and requests, even those unexpressed. A transformation is under way: from “a machine to live in”, the house is becoming “a machine to live with…and through”. The first step was undoubtedly the integration of existing and well-tested home automation technologies into the domestic environment, but the real paradigm shift is being brought about by Artificial intelligence in its Machine Learning version. This could be considered a Darwinian evolutionary process in which housing units learn how to adapt to the needs of their inhabitants, supported by Artificial intelligence. Buildings equipped with advanced sensors and able to ‘perceive’ internal and surrounding conditions, could optimize energy
45 Domotics (from the Latin word Domus, house) can be defined as the application of advanced information technologies, digitalization and artificial intelligence to houses and buildings, with the aim of increasing comfort and improving the quality of life within the domestic space.
consumption with positive effects on both family savings and the environment, while in the meantime also creating an optimized internal climate and protecting the home from unauthorized intrusions. Domotics interactions between residents and technical devices will enhance support especially for fragile categories, such as the elderly, children, and people with disabilities, in an increasingly comfortable and intelligent way, assuring an improved standard of care or appropriate human intervention. The preconditions for realizing the new intelligent buildings are produced by the evolution of ‘IoT’ where the term ‘Internet of Things’ refers to all digital devices operating in the same networks on a global scale. Unlike traditional Internet, where individual people connect to a common network through personal devices, IoT comprises only intelligent sensors and other devices; its uses include the collection of operational data from remote sensors that can be used both for monitoring and control and for the implementation of devices and/or procedures. The Internet of Things (IoT) for Smart Homes is presently growing in Italy, although it has not yet developed its full and real potential. In Italy this market sector reached €350 million in 2019, with a 55% growth compared to 2016. According to a survey from the Internet of Things Observatory of the School of Management of the Polytechnic University of Milan in collaboration with Doxa46, Italians do not yet consider the Smart home
46 Doxa is an opinion poll company operating in Italy since 1946.
setting a suitable option for their home improvement, preferring instead to invest in security and protection devices47 . A Smart building is a domestic or working environment, equipped with the latest generation of sensors allowing the automatic ‘detection’ of relevant human and climatic data and information. IoT, Cloud, and mobile systems can store and transmit data to the building’s owners and facility managers in order to improve the building’s reliability and performance48. Smart buildings can be classified according to four categories of devices and technologies, those related to: • Energy, concerning the production, management, and consumption of energy; • Entertainment, dedicated to all audio-video multimedia equipment; • Security and Safety, aimed at risk prevention and management; • Comfort, concerning all connections, sensors and devices related to human physical presence. However, we must bear in mind that an automated building is not necessarily also intelligent: the distinction depends on the fact that a building to be considered “intelligent”, must not only be equipped with technologies and devices: these must also be interconnected and communicate constantly and automatically with a supervising control infrastructure. It is still perhaps
47 Doxa, Smart Home, it’s boom in 2017 (+35%). 48 Hardwire Internet of Things solutions for industry, IoT and Smart Building: smart buildings, efficient buildings.
too ambitious to envisage a true symbiotic interaction between humans and advanced digital Domotics homes. Certainly, though, it is fascinating to imagine a possible evolutionary leap from machine learning towards some kind of consciousness that one day might be realized thanks to the fruitful collaboration achieved in home automation, and successively extended to other fields of application of Artificial intelligence49. We must keep an attentive eye on the technological evolution of buildings, always bearing in mind that human needs and desires must have absolute priority. The present urban evolution related to digital technologies is aimed at digital integration not only of single houses and buildings, but also of infrastructures, roads, supplies and waste systems. The design of contemporary buildings and the integrated design of infrastructural systems are evolving with the best available technologies, in order to cope with societal challenges and perform in an increasingly ‘intelligent’ way. In this picture, so-called Artificial intelligence (AI) is therefore the most promising additional tool for analyzing reality, developing different scenarios, and simulating something similar to human intelligence50 .
49 Cinquepalmi F., Carlino F. 2019, Oiko-domotica: visioni di simbiosi abitative nel terzo millennio - Oiko-domotics: visions of living symbiosis in the third millennium, Architettura, Tecnica e Legislazione per Costruire, Ponte 1, pp. 7-9. 50 In a 2018 Communication, the European Commission defined Artificial Intelligence as “…systems that exhibit intelligent behaviour by analysing their environment and performing actions, with some degree of autonomy, to achieve specific goals”, European Commission, COM 237 final, Brussels. Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions Artificial Intelligence for
AI systems use ‘neural circuits’ that can be described as computational systems, imitating some functions of the human nervous system in order to achieve automatic learning. Human operators monitor this learning process, correcting the programme when it fails and providing positive feedback when it works correctly. Artificial intelligence, applied to artificial vision, data analysis, and predictive data analysis, is able to radically change management and control procedures within urban functions. The potential fields of application in smart cities can be summarized as follows: • traffic control and related applications; • physical security and anti-intrusion systems; • biometric recognition and people tracking; • energy optimization of buildings and grids; • satellite image analysis for land and soil management; • monitoring of critical infrastructures; • big data analysis for urban logistics optimization; • public administration support systems; • sustainable mobility with unmanned vehicles. The fields of application that are already relevant on the global market concern the regulation of energy grids and home automation. The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that in the energy field AI will be decisive in the years to come and will deeply transform global energy production and transport systems, interconnecting them in a reliable and sustainable way. In the field of clean energy production and consumption, there are many issues that AI can help to solve, and many projects
Europe, swd(2018) 137 final, Brussels, p. 1.
are already launched based on this technology, namely in the field of renewable energy production, in order to cope with the uncertainty of weather conditions. Photovoltaic or wind power energy production is notoriously risky because adverse weather conditions may make it necessary to compensate with traditional energy sources. AI could help to optimize production, transmission, and storage of energy from photovoltaic or wind systems scattered across the territory, integrating real-time weather satellite data, identifying recurring and seasonal patterns, maximizing efficiency grids also according to statistical peaks of consumption, while minimizing the risk of blackouts or burnouts. At the Microgrid home level, AI applied to energy consumption and efficiency in single buildings is perhaps having an even more decisive impact. The household sector for AI represents the greatest potential as it is estimated that by 2040 there will be one billion ‘smart’ homes and 11 billion smart devices worldwide, and their optimization through Artificial intelligence would allow a decrease of more than 10% in household energy consumption. Even at present, interconnected grids and devices are already producing a massive amount of data, available for public and private utility companies, mainly used for tailored personal solutions for consumers. Monitoring the use of household devices and local grids with AI tools could help estimating individual consumption, analyzing personal habits and daily use statistically, thus approximating the hypothetical monthly bill and allowing sustainable personal choices. Practically speaking, AI integrated within a household system