Measuring Indoor Occupancy through Environmental Sensors: A Systematic Review on Sensor Deployment

Area of Science:

• Environmental Science
• Computer Science
• Engineering

Background:

• The COVID-19 pandemic increased the importance of occupancy monitoring in enclosed spaces due to public health restrictions.
• Existing methods for occupancy detection and estimation face challenges in sensor number estimation and deployment details for new researchers.
• Environmental sensors are crucial for real-time occupancy data collection.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically review environmental sensors, experimental settings, sensor placement, datasets, and algorithms for occupancy detection.
• To provide practical guidance for researchers and practitioners on sensor deployment and data collection.
• To propose a technique for calculating the required number of environmental sensors.

Main Methods:

• Systematic literature review of studies on occupancy detection using environmental sensors.
• Analysis of sensor types, deployment locations, sensor placement strategies, and dataset characteristics.
• Extraction of data from three selected studies to develop a sensor number calculation technique.

Main Results:

• An overview of various environmental sensors used for occupancy detection.
• Details on experimental settings, including locations and sensor placement.
• A proposed technique for determining the optimal number of environmental sensors for deployment.

Conclusions:

• Accurate occupancy estimation relies on appropriate sensor selection, strategic placement, and robust algorithms.
• The proposed technique offers a practical approach to sensor quantity calculation, aiding in efficient data collection.
• This review serves as a valuable resource for advancing research and practice in occupancy sensing.