Novel Use of Video Data to Gauge Occupant Wellbeing in Buildings

Principal Investigator: Dr Mauro Overend

Student: Mr Mark Allen

Trimble Contact: Mr Doug Brent

This project sets out to gauge the level of well-being of building occupants using webcams mounted on their monitors. As the science of well-being itself has progressed, the method of capture has remained static, based in surveys and interviews. Machine learning has allowed programs to read human faces with a greater accuracy than humans themselves, detecting subtle expressions showing when somebody is lying, or more controversially other details such as sexual preferences. Combining this powerful technology with well-being science could allow one to gauge the well-being of building occupants in a continuous and non-intrusive manner, much like the measurement of temperature with a conventional sensor. This opens up possibilities for smarter adaptive building controls, allowing the variation of elements to maximise occupant well-being. Further, it could also help to create evidence for good ‘design for well-being’ which is currently lacking in the built environment.